Chapter the Eleventh, or Blue Peter Trusts His Heart.
by Hunt N. Peck
The pirate frigate Ark de Triomphe thumped through the Atlantic rollers on a freezing-cold grey spring morning, the strong wind full of sleety rain. The dawn sky was light behind the frigate, yet dark with the promise of more dirty weather to the west where her bowsprit pointed. She bears it handsomely well, thought Blue Peter, standing in greased sea-boots on the quarterdeck, wrapped in a boatcloak and hatted with a tarred sou’wester. A wave topped the leeward rail and washed across the deck, foaming against the giant upturned bucket lashed-down on the foredeck, then knocked over a pirate in the frigate’s waist. The rebuilt pirate-ship’s freeboard had been made low for ease of boarding a prize, but perhaps a little too low for the north Atlantic in the blustery spring. Bulbous Bill Bucephalus stepped forward from the wheel, which was held by two experienced steersmen with a bully-boy for added weight, and shouted down at the unfortunate pirate.
“Moors yerself with a safety-line, yer damn-yer-eyes lubber! If yuz goes over the side we shall not turn back for yuz! ‘Pon my oath we shall not!”
The pirate, one of the new recruits from the port of London, rolled helplessly in the scuppers until another grabbed his arm and hauled him upright, water draining from under his griego, where a mischievious water-slosh had filled it, rolling from his bare feet to his head as he lay on the deck.
“Arrgh! Take him below to dry off. He’s no use frozen!” and, in a much louder voice, “Pay some mind, yer swabs! Old Neptune he be playful today! Har-har!”
Blue Peter had noticed that the new pirates seemed slightly stunned by the unremitting violence of the seas in mid-ocean, although in truth the Ark de Triomphe was romping through the waves as playfully as a seal, just occasionally sliding beneath a wave-crest in an insouciant fashion. It is a good thing, really, thought Blue Peter, they will realise that the ship has no desire to founder and their fright will then subside, for every sailor must master his fear of the sea. But then, he thought, Bill’s words are a concealed rebuke to me, for I am not tied down yet he has a stout length of rope around his great belly attached to a cleat by the binnacle, and the steersmen are lashed to the wheel-stanchion in a seamanlike fashion. I have no wish to be roped, so I will go below.
Why do I not wish to be roped? he thought, as he clumped down the steps to the waist, water dripping from his sou’wester. Is it because we approach the North American Colonies, and the remembrance of slavery rises within me? Are memories linked to places by some invisible bond, some genius loci, so that the coast of Virginia stirs recollections of old pains, old humiliations, even though it lies hundreds of miles yet to the west? Even though it is not visible to my eyes? The very thought of being tied then seems offensive, being freighted with suggestions of bondage, despite it being an entirely reasonable and necessary precaution.
Mr Benjamin and an assistant were working on the demiheptaxial mechanism in its locker underneath the ship’s wheel, talking in low voices. The locker was now almost filled with brass and steel shafts, cams and gear-wheels, all glinting in the yellow glim from a lantern and the wan rays from a skylight. The ropes from the wheel came vertically down through the quarterdeck above, through the rear of the locker and down into the tiller-room below, from where the ship could be steered if the wheel was carried away by a cannon-ball, and where strong men could be stationed to haul on relieving-tackles to ease the load on the steersmen, and would be if the seas got any rougher. Mr Benjamin and his assistant had just connected an indicator to the mechanism showing the position of the ship’s rudder, a blue-steel arrow on a brass quadrant graduated in degrees. As the steersmen turned the frigate to ride the waves the steering-ropes went up and down creaking, and the blue-steel arrow swung slightly from on side to the other and back again. Mr Benjamin regarded it with a happy smile, and reached out to buff the brass quadrant with a rag.
“This is but a mere gee-gaw,” said Mr Benjamin, “but is it not pleasing? The mechanism itself detects the movement of the ship with the little lead weights in the little box there…” Blue Peter peered into the locker. There was indeed a small cabinet with glass panes, inside he could see a number of spindly levers with balls of grey lead on their ends. As the boat moved under his feet the little levers waggled and glittering brass escapements whirled, faint clickings and whirrings came from deeper inside the mechanism. “This indicator of the rudder’s position is a frippery, a mere curlicue I have added to this wonderful engine, so I that may more easily perceive if there is a discrepancy between the rudder’s movement and the heading given by the mechanism. A crude measure, but a useful one, and they are in complete agreement!”
Mr Benjamin’s jowled face beamed his satisfaction, his eyes shining behind his pince-nez spectacles. His assistant, a young pirate, a gangly youth who had been apprenticed to a clockmaker in Clerkenwell, grinned happily, nodding and repeating “in complete agreement!” several times. Blue Peter noted that both of them had acquired very steady sea-legs. They both shifted their bodies easily as the frigate pitched and rolled, and kept a firm grip against any sudden lurch with at least one hand.
Blue Peter squeezed past them, stepping over Mr Benjamin’s canvas tool-bag, and knocked on the door to the Great Cabin. Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges was at his desk writing in a ledger, dressed all in black, his beard seeming to glow a wan grass-green in the pale easterly light from the tall stern-windows. He shouted for Mumblin’ Jake to bring coffee. Blue Peter sat down.
“Tell me, Captain,” he said, “who designed the demiheptaxial mechanism?”
“Why do you ask?” the Captain smiled.
“It was not Frank. The joy which I saw in his eyes just now was admiration, not the pride of a creator, and anyway he has been too busy with other things, and before that enslaved in Barbary.”
“The devices of which it is composed are familiar to clockmakers, and their principles may be found in a library, if one knows where to look. It is the work of many minds, but Frank has brought all the pieces together into a complete whole, so you grant him but little credit for his labours. I fear that I cannot tell you anything more.”
“I know, I know,” said Blue Peter, “I must wait and all will become clear in time.” He sighed.
Mumblin’ Jake came with the coffee and a dish of sweet cakes on a tray.
“To change the subject, Captain,” said Blue Peter, his mouth full of cake, “can we not raid the slave-masters of Virginia? You once told me that you had no objection if the time was right, and we are headed there with in the finest pirate-frigate ever to sail the seas, and with a crew who have not seen action for a while, and a good half of them who have never seen action at all. It might be useful experience for the new pirates and an encouragement to the old hands. These are very good cakes!”
“That young fellow Thackeray makes ‘em. Cookie is quite jealous. A raid on Virginny? Umm, it’s not a bad idea – you are right that the crew could do with some action to sort them out, and the young fellows are eager to show their mettle – but we are on a tight schedule, and I don’t wish to draw any attention to ourselves. We must call at Norfolk, where I have some business, and that will surely set enough tongues wagging up and down the coast, so I must say nay. I appreciate your feelings in the matter, Peter, but I don’t think it can be done at this time. I must stick to my plans.”
Blue Peter felt obscurely thwarted by this. He ached to do some damage to Master Chumbley and his odious fat wife, or any other slave-owner, and he could almost feel the heat as he imagined their white mansion burning, could almost hear the crackle of the flames and their screams as they burned in their canopied feather-beds. I had forgotten how much I loathe them, he thought. He sipped his coffee glumly.
Blue Peter wished to argue the point further, but it seemed useless when the Captain’s mind was made up. Instead he turned the conversation to discussing the romantic attachments that the crew had made during the past winter in Liver Pool. The necessity for arranging payments to common-law wives and pregnant girlfriends had given them a tedious extra burden before leaving the port, yet it had to be done to maintain goodwill and discretion. The two buccaneers were tired from the stormy passage across the Atlantic, and they got into the kind of argument that only old friends can have, where the issue remains unclear and where the participants end up attacking their own original propositions.
“Why then did you not yourself take a mistress in Liver Pool?” asked Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo, in some irritation.
“Well,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, rubbing his eyes tiredly, “I didn’t have the time. Always busy, you know.”
“What poppycock! The red-haired widow, overseer of the copyists’ room, Mavis O’Bacon, she would have warmed your bed, massaged your back and made you possets, too. She looked at you the way a cat looks at a dish of cod-scraps.”
“I don’t know. I was aware of her … interest. I think it’s because I have been obsessed with time these past months. Every man hates time, and tries to ignore its flow, thinking each day is a repetition of the last with a few trivial changes, and it is not. That is the secret of peasants, you know. Although poor and hard-driven they see the flow of time clearly through the rise and fall of the seasons, and so realise the arcs of their destinies. The rich, by contrast, can insulate themselves from even noticing time, dividing it with clocks and calendars and account-books until they feel it is under their control, and so they are unpleasantly surprised when they grow old, and are outraged when death approaches, whereas the old peasant is sanguine as he goes to meet his maker. Once one starts to think about time, to take the long view, brief amours lose some of their savour. One is always then thinking ‘what next? shall we marry and have children?’ and if the answer is ‘no’ then it all seems a little sad and futile. But then I could ask you the same question, Peter. You could have ensured that half the next generation of Liver Pool scallywags were large and brown. The boys would have been impressive oafs, I’m sure, but I would have pitied the girls if they favoured you in looks.”
They glowered at each other, then burst out laughing. Captain Greybagges refilled their coffee-mugs, taking care not to spill any as the Atlantic combers made the frigate roll and pitch.
“I do know what you mean about time,” said Blue Peter, eating another cake, “and that there should be some purpose to one’s rogerings, too. I did find the ladies of Liver Pool alluring – they have sharp tongues and even the humblest of them has a queenly gaze – but there are enough bastards in this sad vale of tears, and I would like your monster-hunt to be over before I consider domesticity.”
“My ‘monster-hunt’?” Captain Greybagges looked surprised. “I had not thought of it quite like that.”
“By what other name could one particularise those creatures, the extramundanes that you described in your tale to me?”
“I suppose you are right, but I like the lizard people, and cannot think of them as monsters. A few men and women that I have encountered have been far more monstrous. Some of them fair of face, witty, elegant and charming in their manner, too.”
“I cannot argue with that, Captain, for I have met similar human monsters, although they are quite rare, thankfully.”
“We are both pirates, Peter, and so perhaps less inclined than others to judge by mere appearance, but still we can be deceived. Did you ever meet that mad cavalier Prince Rupert of the Rhine? He was a-buccaneering around the Carib seas before the King was restored. He had a little poodle-dog called ‘Boyo’.”
“I don’t believe that I ever did, Captain, why do you ask?”
“Well, the first time that I came across the fellow was in the Dry Tortugas, in the old Ponce de Leon tavern. I was sitting drinking rum-and-water in a civilised way when in came Prince Rupert. Without a word of warning the sod thrust a globule of glass under my nose and tweaked it – the glass globule, that is, not my nose – and it exploded like a bomb! My eyes were full of splinters of glass! I had to bathe them in salt water! That good fellow Izzie had to get some of them out with the wetted corner of a kerchief. I feared I might be blinded, and the cursed hound laughed like a drain! Prince Rupert, that is, not his little dog Boyo. If I could have seen anything at all I would have shot him or run him through without a second thought, but my eyes were full of tears and glass. Yet when I got to know him better I found that he was a congenial sort of cove. The glass-bomb was an invention of his, and he had been merely over-enthusiastic in the pride of his discovery and over-eager to demonstrate natural philosophy, and not the depraved lover of cruelty that he seemed at that first meeting.”
“How did the glass-bomb function? Was it filled with gunpowder?”
“Not at all, Peter. If one heats a rod of glass until it melts like pitch, then allows the molten glass to drip into a bucket of water, each drop is instantly solidified, but the outside hardens first, squeezing the interior, so that forces are frozen in the solid glass. When one snaps off the tail of the globule it precipitates the whole into shattering quite energetically, bang! Prince Rupert is presently much caressed by London’s society for his learning – he has invented a new method for printing pictures, you know – and the glass-bombs are called ‘Prince Rupert’s drops’, so his name shall be written in the pages of history for an invention of no use whatsoever, except to fill unfortunate souls’ eyes with glass-splinters, and not for his failed siege of Liver Pool.”
“He laid siege to Liver Pool? Whatever for?”
“It was in the war ‘twixt King Charlie’s cavaliers and Noll Cromwell’s round-heads, and nobody seems to have had much notion of what they were about in those times. The people of Liver Pool remembered him well, and his little dog, too, which they said had the evil eye, although how a poodle-dog may possess the evil eye is beyond my imagining, I must say, even though it was a horrid little mutt, always trying to roger one’s leg, you know? The Liver Pool ruffians said that he lifted the siege because they stole most of his supplies while his army was camped outside the town, which I can well believe.”
“Does this tale of Prince Rupert have a moral? or indeed an ending?” said Blue Peter, selecting another cake.
“Well, I suppose I was musing upon the nature of monsters, and that although Prince Rupert seemed like a monster at our first encounter he wasn’t, really. There is the Liver Pool connection, too, which brought him to mind.” The Captain took the last cake.
“I suspect that you are attempting to divert me from my ploy to trick you into revealing something more of your plan, Captain.”
“Well, Peter, I think I was going to say that a monster – which is to say a monster of evil, and not just a poor sad malformed thing such as a kitten with two heads – is defined by a lack of interest in the welfare of other beings. Such a person is so utterly focussed upon their own selfhood that they incapable of the normal human attributes of sympathy, generosity, magnaminity and so on. In fact, they may exult in defying the vestiges of their conscience, if indeed they have one, and so relish cruelty.”
“We pirates are generally regarded as monsters, surely, Captain? Those were very good cakes, and now there are none.”
Captain Greybagges shouted for Mumblin’ Jake to bring more cakes. Mumblin’ Jake put his head around the door and mumbled that there were no more cakes, an’ damn yer eyes yer greedy bastards. He took the coffee pot to refill.
“Pirates may be monsters, Peter, of course they may. Alf Docklefar, who made the Ark de Triomphe ship-in-a-bottle over there, has sailed with most of them, to judge by his yarns. But when exactly is one a pirate, and thus a criminal, and not a privateer, and so a legal entity plying a legal trade? That is not clear at all. The Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, sanctioned by the Pope himself, gave everything west of the Cape Verde Islands to the Spaniards and everything east to the Portugese, and yet was that not itself a great act of piracy? Most of those lands were already inhabited by folks who would not know the Pope from a coster-monger, after all. The other countries of Europe regarded the treaty with derision, of course. Francis the First, who was king of the French, roared with laughter when he heard of it, and asked to be shown the clause in Adam’s will that made such a bequest legal. As a lawyer, I do applaud him for that! He was a fine fellow, was Francis, a very learned king. He made Guillame Budé master of his library at Fontainebleau, which shows great judgement of character as well as an appreciation of the importance of librarians. So, was Drake a pirate? The Dons say that he was, of course they do, and the English say that he was a hero, of course they do. Since then the situation has become even more confused. The meridian has been moved three hundred and seventy leagues westwards, so as not to discommode the Portugese, and a further understanding among the European nations means that any incident west of that cannot be regarded as legal grounds for a war, which is how bloody Captain Bloody Morgan could besiege and sack Panama and be made Governor of Jamaica, and why the Spanish have to grin and bear it as best they can. In the seas and lands west of the mid-Atlantic meridian it must be assumed that European laws are only honoured in the breach, and that therefore the only law that needs to be considered is ‘might is right’. Under such a legal regime the label of pirate becomes meaningless. I rest my case.”
Mumblin’ Jake came with the refilled coffee-pot and a plate of biscuits, mumbling curses. Blue Peter poured coffee and took a biscuit.
“I am desolated to find that I am not a pirate,” he said, dunking the biscuit and eating it in one mouthful.
“And neither are you a monster, Peter, but if certain parties were to apprehend you they would hang you nonetheless. Now I am diverted from the point I wished to make, which is that I am not a monster, but that my monster-hunt compels me to behave as one. I cannot tell my officers or my crew what I am about, but must instead strut about like a tyrant insisting my orders be obeyed even if they seem not to make much sense, and yet there is no other way. Leave me one biscuit at least, Peter, you greedy sod!”
Blue Peter pushed the plate towards the Captain, but a lurch of the frigate propelled it further and the Captain caught it as it slid off the desk.
“Well caught, sir!” said Blue Peter, clapping. Captain Greybagges ate the biscuit.
“However, Peter, I may vouchsafe you a little of my schemings. Our next port o’ call is St John’s in Newfoundland. A cold and miserable place, but we shall only water and provision there before heading south to Virginny.”
The mention of Virginia reminded Blue Peter of his thwarted desire to commit arson upon white mansions, which put him in an ill humour. I am tired, he thought, we all are from the hammering of the seas, and the cold, and the need for standing watch after watch. He made his leave to the Captain and retired to his cabin for a couple of hours sleep. The ship seems to enjoy these high Atlantic seas more than the crew, he thought, as he tied himself into his bunk. I think of her as a wolf at first, then as a leopardess, and now as a seal. There is something very alive, very animal, about a good ship, even though a ship is conceived by the mind of man, not God, and made of wood, not flesh. Perhaps she will come to me again as I slumber. But Blue Peter had no hypnogogic visitation, only a dreamless restorative nap, rocked by the frigate’s pitching, lullabied by the gentle creaking of its timbers, until woken at midday by the eight bells of the end of the forenoon watch. Dinner was a broth of barley, dried peas and salt-pork, with bread, not hard-tack, as there was still flour this early in their voyage. Blue Peter ate his in the officer’s mess-room, which was a little larger after the frigate’s rebuild, and now tastefully panelled in light oak. Israel Feet joined him at the table in fine high spirits, drops of spray still glittering in the locks of hair that stuck out from under his head-scarf. The officer’s mess-room of the Ark de Triomphe was not like that of a ship of the Royal Navy, and pirates on various errands came in and out without ceremony. They seemed in fine spirits, too. I was right, thought Blue Peter, the rough weather and cold high seas have given the crew faith in the vessel, and now they are exhilarated by its romping progress through the waves. He drank some coffee, and wondered if any more cakes had been baked yet.
***********
The Ark de Triomphe, sailing due-westerly under topsails alone, slipped slowly into the Hampton Roads from Chesapeake Bay, leaving a white wake on the choppy grey-green water, trailing a small flock of optimistic seagulls.
“Starboard on my mark, mateys,” Bulbous Bill Bucephalus told the steersmen, and, stepping forward, roared “Goin’ about to port! Be ready to brace up!” to the foremast-jacks, then to the waisters; “Lead-swingers to the chains! Ready the longboat, you lubbers, har-har!”
The breeze on-shore was light but steady, and the Ark de Triomphe’s wake curved smoothly from due west to due south as she turned into the wide mouth of the Elizabeth River. The pirate on the port fore-chain started swinging the seven-pound lead weight on its line, at first back and forth, then around like a sling in an accelerating circle before releasing the coiled line to hurl the hand-lead far ahead of the slow-moving vessel. After a moment the second pirate on the starboard fore-chain started swinging his lead, timing the cast so that the depth-soundings would come alternately as the hand-leads sank to the bottom and were pulled in and cast again.
“Take her past Half Moone Island,” said Captain Greybagges, pointing into the distance, “and then we’ll anchor south of Town Point. The harbour-master will be assured of our goodwill when a little gold is pressed into his sweaty palm, I’m sure, and the Half Moone fort will keep us safe from any impudent Dutch privateers who may be sniffing about the coast. They can exchange broadsides with the fort, should they come up-river, whilst we may make wagers on them, sitting comfy, sipping rum and eating hot chestnuts.”
The lead-swingers called; “No bottom!” and; “Six and a half! Six and a half and sand!” and; “Five and some! Five and some and gravel! Brown gravel and shells!” The hand-leads had hollows in their bases filled with tallow, to which the silt would adhere as they thumped onto the river-bottom. As the soundings grew shallower and the bottom more gravelly an anchor was prepared for dropping, swinging free from its cathead, and the longboat was launched to kedge the ship if required. After a normal ration of skinned knuckles, pulled muscles and curse-words the frigate swung in the slow river current, its anchor securely bedded in the gravelly river-floor, and its sails furled into swags on the yards.
The frigate’s last port of call, St John’s in Newfoundland, had indeed been a cold and miserable place, but they had not tarried there. Two days to replenish water and food, for the Captain to despatch and receive some letters and for a few small repairs to be made, occasioned by the battering of the Atlantic. The widened forward gun-ports which Torvald Coalbiter had suggested had needed to be reinforced, as they now took more of the weight of each wave, and the high seas had shaken the hinge-bolts loose. There had been a great surfeit of fresh fish in St John’s, though, and the crew of the Ark de Triomphe had gorged themselves on fillets of cod fried in batter for breakfast, dinner and tea. Captain Greybagges had allowed four parties of six to go ashore, each accompanied by a bully-boy to ensure discipline. He felt that this would prevent the remainder of the crew from feeling aggrieved at having to stay aboard, and indeed the shore-parties duly reported back that St John’s was a cold dirty slum of a hole of a place which smelled overpoweringly of whale-oil and rotting fish, that the ale was alike to horse-piddle, that the pies were made of whale-meat and that the only entertainment to be found was a toothless old bugger with a guitar who sang songs in French, although Jake Thackeray said that the song about the gorilla was very funny and that he was going to translate it. The crew were not unduly surprised that Jake spoke French, as he was a very good pastry-cook. Captain Greybagges had impressed upon the shore-parties the need for discretion, and had provided each party with a different yarn to spin to the townspeople about the frigate’s destination: they were collecting Mayan princesses from Mexico for the hareem of the Ottoman Sultan in Constantinople; they were on a diplomatic mission for the king of Sweden; they were carrying a letter from the prophet Sabbatti Zevi to the Emperor of Cathay, or perhaps to Prester John; they were going to navigate a nor-westerly passage to the Orient.
The Ark de Triomphe had departed St John’s on a morning tide in a fall of swirling snow, leaving a certain bemusement in her wake, and had sailed east out into the Atlantic. She then curved south and west back towards the north Americas, encountering an iceberg along the way, a magnificent blue-green ice-castle which they had fired upon for target-practice with the new rifled muskets, the guns wonderfully accurate even at three hundred paces. They had seen no other ships until they were close to New Amsterdam, and then only mast-tops on the horizon, glimpsed through the haze. The frigate sailed on south-south-west, occasionally heading south-by-west or southwest-by-south to keep a generous margin of sea-room from the coast, to drop anchor in the river by the town of Norfolk, Virginia, on a calm and sunny forenoon.
“It is indeed a fine day, Captain, but why are we here?” said Blue Peter.
“We are here because I must meet with a Dutchman. A Dutchman who possesses something that may be useful to me,” said Captain Greybagges, snapping his telescope shut after surveying the foreshore and the river. “A Dutchman who is not yet here.”
“How long shall us wait upon him then, Cap’n?” said Bill, standing at the rail eating a large wedge of cold sea-pie.
“I would wish that he were here now, but I may allow him one week, and no more.”
“Should we not then bow-and-stern her with the second anchor, Cap’n? In case the wind blows up, or rain swells the river?”
“Um, yes, if we are to be here for a week then I suppose so, but keep the second anchor nipped and close-by, so we don’t lose both of ‘em if she drags, and drop a couple of light kedges, too, to keep her from swinging should the wind veer.”
Captain Greybagges, Blue Peter and Mr Benjamin sat at their ease at the table in the Great Cabin. Through the open stern-windows they could hear the splashing, grunting and cursing of the longboat crew.
“Those little anchors, they are called kedges, then?” said Mr Benjamin, peering out the stern-windows.
“Indeed, yes,” said the Captain, “to distinguish them from their larger cousins. Some call them ‘fisherman’s anchors’, because they are pretty much the same as those of a lugger or a herring-buss.”
“A lugger? Would that be a vessel that lugs things about?” said Mr Benjamin.
“Well, yes and no,” said the Captain, grinning. “A lugger may indeed lug a cargo from hither to yon, but that is not the origin of its name.”
“Satisfy my curiosity, Captain, I beg you! I find myself a-thirst for nautical lore these days! Being aboard this grand frigate has enthused my spirits for things maritime, and whetted my desire to be a sailor, or to at least pass for one when quaffing ale in a dockside tavern. What is a lugger, and why is it so-named?”
“That is a question, indeed it is, Frank. A question that requires a full and detailed answer. You mention the quaffing of ale in dockside taverns, too, so let us combine these two activities, and grow our beards a little! I shall need to disguise mine first, of course, so as not to cause tredidation in the local inhabitants … Jake! Jake, you lazy swab! Bring the boot-polish!”
The clapboard tavern could not be considered to be on a dockside, but rather faced a beach of stones and river-mud, with boats in various stages of decrepitude hauled up onto it, and fishing-nets hung on poles for repair. The tavern’s name was Wahunsunacock’s Mantle. The inn-sign represented the famous mantle with a wooden board in the shape of a deerskin cloak, the figures of a man and two deer painted upon it, the white paint applied it in a pattern of dots to mimic the tiny shells with which the actual cloak had been embroidered. It was warm in the front parlour of the tavern, with a fire of logs in a brick hearth, and there was a pleasant aroma of baking bread and roasting coffee-beans.
Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges had visited the harbour-master, finding him in the day-cabin of the harbour pratique-boat drinking tea and eating a meat-pie for his lunch. The harbour-master was a beefy ginger-haired man with sharp grey eyes and a bluff honest countenance, but he was not immune to the power of a clinking handful of Spanish reales d’or and the Captain was able to conclude his business with him amiably and expeditiously: The Dutchman whom the Captain sought was not there, but he had left word for the Captain that he would return in ten days hence. The Captain would be kept informed of any undue interest in the Ark de Triomphe or its doings. There were no privateers or naval vessels currently in the vicinity, and would the Captain join him in a glass of rum? The Captain would, and a cigar, too, as he had not before smoked one from Virginia. He parted with the harbour-master on excellent terms and joined the others in the tavern, where his conversation with Frank Benjamin had continued almost as though without interruption.
“… so you see, Frank, every lugger has a lug-sail, but not every boat with a lug-sail is a lugger, if you follow me.” Captain Greybagges sipped his hot rum-and-water.
“There are so many variations upon the theme of a large tub with a sail affixed to it,” said Mr Benjamin. “ I now see the wit of that ship-in-a-bottle. The one whose precise classification confused you all so. Perhaps each ship in unique unto itself.”
“Arrrgh!,” spake Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, “it be incontravertibibble that ay craft o’ ay sea-goin’ nature do have a soul! Begging the pardon of any preachy lubbers who may object themselves upon grounds ‘o blasphemy, it must be clear to any right-thinkin’ buccaneer that a ship o’ the seas has an immortal soul! Much like a man – an’ damn yer eyes iffen it ain’t the truth! – a ship has a soul!” Captain Greybagges leaned forward, shut one eye conspiratorily and lowered his voice. “…. although I must confess that my opinion about riverboats remains uncertain!”
There was a moment of pause, then a rumble of appreciative laughter.
“Arrgh! Curse all bumboats an’ damn wherries too! Wi’ a wannion!” squeaked Bill, the tone of his voice sent even higher by hot rum-grog.
“There is substance to my joshing,” said the Captain in a less-piratical voice, “for there are indeed many variations upon a wooden tub with a mast, so many that they resemble the varieties of animals. Is a zebra a horse? Or do its stripes make it necessarily a relative of the tiger? Its preferences – to run in herds, to eat grass, to kick its enemies with its hind legs – must lead one to believe that it is a horse and not a tiger, and so it must have a pneuma or spirit, some kind of a soul which predisposes it to a horse-like behaviour, and not to a solitary life of carnivorous predation. Is each sailing vessel equipped thus? Do some ships huddle together in fleets because they are predisposed to do so by their nature, like horses? Do other ships plough a more solitary wake, maybe even a more savage one, because their souls ache to prowl the seas in lonely freedom, as does the tiger in his jungle? ”
The Captain would have spoken more, but he was interrupted by a polite “ahem!” from a man sitting in an armchair by the fire.
“Excuse my horning-in, sir!” he said, arising from the depths of the winged armchair which had concealed him, “but I guess and calculate that riverboats are surely possessed of souls! Souls that love to wander! Mischievious and sprightly souls! Powerful souls full of great determination! I have voyaged through these lands on rivers wide and narrow, in boats great and little, and I speak from experience. Excuse me again! I am remiss! I am Richard Bonhomme, trader, horse-coper, arkwright and voyageur!”
The small portly man puffed out his chest like a bantam-cock, swept off his battered hat and bowed, tottering slightly.
“Why, no slight taken!” said the Captain. “It be a free discussion. Be pleased to join us and sit at our table.” He called for more drinks.
“… the birch-bark canoe is decried by mariners, but it is a … a paragon of the nautical virtues!” Richard Bonhomme took a gulp of grog. “The cunning Wampanoag or Pequot indian can make a small one in a matter of days, but it will carry him for a thousand leagues or more. All he needs is birch-bark, split-pine laths, vines for stitching and pine-sap for caulking, all of which can be gotten in the forest. You may think such a craft simple to make, but I would wager that your ship’s carpenter could not make one in less than a month, and it would not then stay afloat for one single day. It is an art. Canoes can be made over ten paces long, too, to carry three tons of cargo and ten men! The big canoes take longer to make, and need careful handling, but no other boat will take the trappers deep into the interior where the beavers, martens and lynxes roam, for often the canoe must be carried over les portages, and a wooden boat would be too heavy. I have built many such canoes, and made many such journeys. Each canoe is different, too, so they must have souls, it stands to reason!”
The Captain, Blue Peter and Mr Benjamin listened carefully, but Israel Feet and Bulbous Bill were playing cards in a tipsy fashion, only lending half an ear.
“Mr Bonhomme,” said Mr Benjamin slowly, “I am Frank Benjamin, and I believe that you are my cousin!”
Mr Bonhomme stared at him, round-eyed with surprise, then nodded slowly.
“Frank Benjamin! Of course I have heard tell of you! The famed mechanician and printer of books and pamphlets! How pleased I am to meet you at last, cousin!”
“And I you, Mr Bonhomme. Please do call me Frank! I heard through the gossipings of my family’s womenfolk that you are become prosperous through horse-trading, which says much for your wit and cunning!”
“It is true, Frank,” Mr Bonhomme simpered, “I have been blessed with some good fortune, but I must be modest and say that I was lucky to be amongst the first of the voyageurs, and so able to make a goodly profit before the whole business of trapping fur was stolen away, stolen away by powerful companies, companies with deep pockets for the bribing of government clerks, curse them all! I was lucky, too, to be among that company of freedom-loving men and women, whose home was the woods, and whose eyes were always upon the unreachable horizon! Alas! Those that remain are now no more than mere employees, slaves to the whims of stock-holders in London and Paris. I, too, would have stayed a voyageur, for I love the woods and the rivers, but my back and legs were getting no younger, and carrying a pack over the muddy trail of a portage was no longer such an easy stroll. Still, I was blessed there, too, for I put my money into horse-trading just as the demand for horses and mules grew great here in Virginny, and then into breeding-studs, stables and livery, too, so I have not done so badly. I still dream of the woods, though, and the rough companionship I knew there. I even miss my indian friends, for they are savages, it is true, but they have a wild nobility that we civilised peoples have not had since the times of the warriors of the ancient legends. Some of them do, anyway! You are of my family, cousin Frank, so please call me Richard. You fellows, too, as we meet so congenially, and talk of the souls of boats like philosophers. I salute you all!”
Mr Bonhomme raised his glass of grog and emptied, the buccaneers followed suit and banged their glasses down on the table.
“Captain Greybagges ….” said Mr Benjamin, in a tentative voice.
“Sylvestre, if you please, in these cordial circumstances,” said the Captain, refilling his glass from the jug.
“Sylvestre, meeting my cousin Richard for the first time is a pleasant surprise, yet it reminds me that I have a mother, six brothers, ten sisters, a wife, a son and a daughter, none of whom have I seen for over a year. This Dutchman of yours will not arrive for a week, so might I have a leave of absence, a furlough, for three days, to visit them? You know that I will return and not ‘jump ship’, as you matelots say.”
“You are fortunate that that you ask me this now, while I am in drink and thus full of good cheer,” said the Captain.
“You are vital to our company in this enterprise, yet I am inclined to allow you this, provided you will return. How far is your family home? How debatable are the roads you must travel? The malice of an indian brave or the greed of a footpad might delay you, or worse, and then our success will be put in doubt, despite the good work that you have done in schooling your assistants.”
“Upon horseback it is but half a day, …” said Mr Benjamin.
“And I shall provide the horse!” cried Mr Bonhomme. “And I shall accompany my cousin Frank, with two of my men, stout fellows and not shy! We shall bring Frank back to you even if we have to carry him on a shutter, if he shall be the worse for drink, ho-ho!”
“Why, then it is difficult for me to refuse, Frank,” said the Captain slowly, not looking entirely content.
“Upon my honour, Captain!” said Mr Bonhomme, placing his hand on his chest, “I shall ensure my cousin’s timely return! We could start now, and so be back the sooner! We will arrive in Boston after dark, ‘tis true, but the last four leagues are on a straight path through open pasture, and there is the twilight until the moon rises. Come cousin! On with your hat! Let us away!”
Captain Greybagges put on a stern expression, then nodded.
“I mislike enterprises conceived in grog,” he said, “but if your two stout fellows are sober and your horses obedient, Richard, then maybe you will arrive approximately in one piece. Go now, Frank, before I change my mind.”
Mr Benjamin struggled to his feet, trying to put on his hat and finish his grog at the same time.
“Thank you, Captain! … Sylvestre!” he gasped, putting his glass on the table.
“Do you have enough money in your purse? Are you sure? Then get on your way as quick as you can, lest nightfall catch you on the road. Do please pass my kindest regards to your mother and family.” The Captain waved them away, with a brief smile.
The two hurried from the inn. The First Mate and the sailing master appeared not to have noticed, intent upon their cards. Bulbous Bill discarded a two of diamonds, took the top card from the deck, examined it, smiled, his fat jowls dimpling, and laid his hand down on the table-top.
“Har-har! A forced quinola an’ so the espagnolette! Your goose be cooked, Izzy! Har-har!”
“Bloody Rovescinio! I curses the cursed game! I do swear that you be making up the rules as we plays, Bill! ‘Pon my oath I does! Where is Frank and the little fat cully?”
Captain Greybagges sighed and shook his head sadly. Blue Peter stood up.
“Captain, I will follow after Frank and his cousin,” he said. “If Mr Bonhomme’s horses are overly boisterous, or if his stout fellows are as inebriated as he is himself, I shall persuade them to wait upon the morning. Otherwise I shall make sure that they are expeditiously away on their travels.”
He put on his hat and strode from the inn. Captain Greybagges sighed again, gestured to the innkeeper for another jug of grog, and turned back to the table.
“Rovescinio you say? By my bones! That be a game fit only for Venetian zoccoli, prancing nincompoops and French dressmakers! Deal me in, Bill, and I shall skin you both.”
They played several hands, Bulbous Bill winning all of them. Loomin’ Len came and asked if the crew could go ashore, as their tasks were done.
“Of course!” said the Captain. “This is a fair haven for we jolly pirates. There is but little chance of any surprises, so long as we pays our way, respects the local customs and the indians don’t go on the war-path, har-har! Look-outs to be posted and watches to be kept, mind! You know the drill with the crew. Parties of six only, bully-boys to stay sober, no trollops on board. Sails need be mended and trunnions be slushed on the morning, remember, so no man to get himself paralytical, and no fighting.”
Loomin’ Len made to leave.
“Oh, and see if’n you can’t find Peter. It ain’t like him to go wanderin’ off, specially when we shall be havin’ ourselves some afternoon tea. And cakes, too, if I am not mistaken.” The Captain sniffed the aroma of baking from the inn’s kitchen, sipped his grog, now cold, and picked up his cards. After some deliberation he discarded two and took two from the pack. The game continued.
Loomin’ Len came back into the inn, followed by several pirates. They doffed their knitted caps, mumbled greetings to the Captain and sat at the table by the fire. Loomin’ Len came to the Captain, bent down and whispered:
“He’s hired a hoss, Cap’n, an’ he’s rode orf. The ostler said he didn’t say where he’s going, but he didn’t foller after Mr Benjamin and his pal. Says he spurred the hoss an’ rode orf like he was on a wager, coat tails a-flying.”
Captain Greybagges hand stopped halfway through carrying his glass to his lips. He sat perfectly still for several seconds, then placed the glass back on the table.
“Izzy, Bill, come let us get some air,” he said softly, standing and putting on his black tricorn hat.
The First Mate and the sailing master hurried after the Captain, who was almost running. They were a unsteady on their feet from the afternoon of rum-grog, but they caught up to him as he entered the stable-yard of Mr Bonhomme. With a few terse questions the Captain confirmed what Loomin’ Len had told him. He tore off his hat and nearly threw it onto the ground with anger, but mastered himself and put it carefully back upon his shaven head, breathing heavily.
“Damn the man!” he hissed. “Damn me for a dunderhead, too! I come ashore and forget myself, drinking and playing cards like any empty-headed jolly sailor on a toot! I have a little time waiting for a damn Dutchman, I think! We are safe-berthed! I may relax and grow my beard a little! What a tomfool I am!”
“Where is he away, then, Cap’n?” said Israel Feet, exchanging a puzzled glance with Bill.
“He is gone to burn down his former master’s house. I did not realise the depth of his feelings about the things he endured as a slave. He is a proud man, and he means to have his vengeance if he can. We must stop him.” The Captain turned and shouted to the ostler, who was pitch-forking hay into a manger; “You! Fellow! We must have three horses and we must have them now! Here is gold!”
Captain Greybagges led them out of Jamestown at a sedate walk, telling his two friends that they must not give any indication of hurry, but when he came to the road that Blue Peter had taken he spurred the horse, snapped the reins and galloped, snarling ‘gid-yap! gid-yap!” at the startled nag. Israel Feet followed him on a lean gelding, almost keeping up despite his lack of horsemanship, and Bulbous Bill Bucephalus trailed after, his wobbling bulk bouncing on a large and good-natured mare, a good-natured mare which, despite its complaisance, ignored his squeaked exhortations and trotted with no sense of urgency. A small boy with ragged trousers and a fishing-pole over his shoulder stared open-mouthed with surprise as the trio rode past him into the deepening twilight.
Blue Peter, many miles ahead, lay along his horse’s neck and growled words of encouragement to it as it hurtled along the muddy road. The horse’s flanks were lathered with sweat and slather foamed from its lips. Clods of earth kicked up by its flying hooves fell back to the ground seconds after it had passed and become invisible in the gloom. Through Blue Peter’s mind ran the phrase trust your heart, trust your heart, trust your heart, like a mantra. His emotions roiled and swirled like a hurricane, but at the hurricane’s eye, at his heart, there was a calm filled with the cold thirst for vengeance.