by Hunt N. Peck
Chapter the Fourteenth, or Two Wonders.
Jack Nastyface and Jake Thackeray sat on the mizzenmast mainsail cross-trees, legs dangling twenty feet above the deck. Below them the pirate crew dispersed and went about their tasks. After a short while the air-pumps re-started their endless honk-wheeze, honk-wheeze, honk-wheeze on the foredeck behind and below them. The first air-pump had been joined by a second which had been brought up from the hold, an even more devilish air-pump, a high-pressure air-pump that packed yet more air into the large bronze bottles, the ones the size of cannons, after they had been part-filled by the first air-pump. It was an air-pump that would act fairly to break the back and spirit of any man. Any man who was not a stout buccaneer, of course.
“He does speak well, doesn’t he?” said Jake.
“Old Soapy Syl the Shyster,” muttered Jack, under his breath.
“What?” said Jake.
“That’s what the old pirates call him sometimes, the ones who were with him before London. You didn’t hear that from me and don’t you ever call him that. Not ever. I’m not allowed to call him that, really, as I was only Jack Nastyface back then, even though I was there,” said Jack Nastyface.
“But you are still Jack Nastyface, are you not?”
“I am, but if this were a ship of the Royal Navy I would not be, and you would be Jack Nastyface instead. It is the customary name for the cook’s assistant.”
“Ah, but then why were you Jack Nastyface to begin with, this ship not being a Navy vessel?”
“Some of the old pirates were deserters from the Navy, so they just followed the custom notwithstanding, but many of them retired ashore at London and fellows like you joined us, and so I am stuck with Jack Nastyface for all time, I suppose.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“What is a ‘shyster’?” said Jake.
“A lawyer,” said Jack.
“And that is a bad thing?”
“Certainly. A lawyer is a man of far less honour than a pirate, which is why you must not repeat what I just told you, and already regret telling you.”
“The Cap’n was a lawyer, then?”
“Yes, so they say. A man with a silver tongue, an artful tongue which was at the service of any who could pay his fee.”
“And the Cap’n was good at the lawyering?”
“Oh, Lord, Jake! You have just heard him, have you not? He says ‘I will tell you all, so that you may have faith in me, my fellow buccaneers!’ and then he tells us nothing at all, but everyone is happy and feels that he has opened his heart to them.”
“He said were are to voyage far, farther than any freebooters have ever gone before, and that we will win a great fortune. He has hinted at this before, and indeed it do seem likely, as he has spent gold like a nabob and we have nothing yet to show for it, not even one prize, which irks the older fellows greatly. Some of them guess that we are off to plunder the Great Cham of Tartary, some reckon it to be the treasure of Prester John, others aver it must be the emperor of far Cathay and yet others speak of the legends of a land even further to the east, where the sun do rise. What say you, Jack?”
“I do not know, but that … device down there,” Jack indicated the object on the raft by the side of the Ark de Triomphe, “that piques my curiosity, and not in a way that brings me comfort. It has an unnatural look to it. The things that come from the distant east – the porcelain vases, the bronze urns, the painted fans and screens and such – they look foreign enough, surely, but not as strange as that. I look at it and I feel uneasy in my heart.”
The two young pirates stared down at the object. Pirates were cleaning the seaweed and barnacles from it, and the strange blue-green-tinted metal of the vessel gleamed in the early-morning light.
“Jack, do you not trust the Cap’n, then?” said Jake slowly, in an undertone.
“As sure as God is my witness, I do trust him, and would willingly risk my life and the salvation of my soul for him, for he has ever shown me the greatest kindness and forbearance, especially when I first came aboard this barky and was no more than a giddy boy, and I owe my good fortune to him entire, but I wish I knew more of his mind and of his plans.”
“Blue Peter knows something of those, I say, for he is oft-times inward and thoughtful, and yet he follows the Cap’n without question. All the others, young pirates and old, keep to their own counsel with patience, too, and do not much discuss what they may only hazard guesses at.”
“Ah, you are right! Of course you are right! He always comes up trumps in the end, and we are all the richer for his cunning. I regret speaking now, for it may bring ill luck.” Jack Nastyface crossed himself furtively and knocked with his knuckles on the brine-pickled pitch-pine timber of the mast. “Do please forget I spoke at all, and say nothing to the others, Jake! Not to anybody!”
“Assuredly, Jack! Speak of what, pray? Ho-ho! Come on, let’s to work! There are pots waiting for me to scrub, and you must knot, splice, serve and parcel until your fingers ache, and then take your turn at the cursed air-pumps, too, even if you know not the reason why!”
Jake Thackeray swung himself through the lubber’s hole and climbed down the ratlines. Jack Nastyface disdained to follow him and slid down the back-stay to the deck hand-over-hand in a seamanlike manner.
On the raft by the frigate’s side the seaweed and marine growth had been scraped from the metal vessel. It resembled two huge shallow dishes joined rim-to-rim.
“A Greek discus, that is what it brings to mind,” said Mr Benjamin to Loomin’ Len Lummocks. “Where is the saw?”
One of Len’s bully-boys brought forth a saw. It resembled a shipwright’s whipsaw, which is longer than a man is tall, with wooden handles at each end for two men to cut planks from a dressed tree-trunk in a sawpit. However, instead of steel teeth the edge of this saw was set with gemstones along its length. They gleamed with rainbow colours in the sunlight.
“A king’s ransom of diamonds!” Mr Benjamin shook his head ruefully. “But they shall work for us and not decorate a lady’s breast, which is surely the first time such sparklers have been useful instead of merely ornamental. Set to lads! Use the lignum-vitae blocks to hold it steady until it bites a groove, and you!” He pointed to a young pirate, once apprenticed to a millwright, who held a tin kettle. “Dribble the oil on slowly, in a thin stream.”
Two bully-boys took up the saw and placed it against the blocks of hard wood held on the convex surface of the strange object by two more bully-boys. The young pirate poured a thread of olive oil onto the blade and the saw was pulled back-and-forth in a smooth continuous action. After a quarter of an hour Mr Benjamin told the sawing bully-boys to change places with the bully-boys holding the saw’s position with the blocks. He examined the metal surface while the sawing was halted, squinting through his pince-nez spectacles with furrowed brows.
“Bless me! … sorry! … Avast, shipmates, har-har! … The saw is biting! This will be slow work, for this strange metal is prodigious hard, but you shall prevail! With a will, my lads! With a will!”
Captain Greybagges watched from the quarterdeck rail, his face tense. When he heard Mr Benjamin’s words he looked relieved. He shouted encouragement to the bully-boys sawing at the vessel, the glittering saw-blade moving rhythmically and relentlessly, and halloo’d to the pirates at the air-pumps as well, then went below.
In the Great Cabin the rasping rhythm of the diamond-toothed saw could be faintly heard through the open stern windows, ssssss-ssssss-ssssss-ssssss, faster than the laboured honk-wheeze of the two air-pumps, as well as the normal shouts, bangs and clatters of a fighting ship at anchor. Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges listened to the odd syncopation of the noises. Mumblin’ Jake brought a tray with a pot of coffee, a jug of water with lemon slices and ice, cups, glasses and a plate of biscuits. Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo entered as Mumblin’ Jake left, mumbling. He was dressed in a work-rig of an old cotton shirt and knee-britches, his calves and feet bare. He brought with him the sharp musk-tang of fresh sweat.
“You have been at the air-pump, Peter, if I may hazard a guess.” The Captain poured him coffee, but Blue Peter first took a glass of iced water and drained it in a draught, wiping his mouth with a soft “ahhh!” of pleasure.
“Indeed I have. It is best if we all share in these tedious labours, Captain. I wished to take a turn at the bejewelled saw, too, as it is the most costly saw in the entire world, but Frank waved me away. I think he does not wish Len and his boys to be put off their stroke.”
“I suppose it is a little like rowing, Peter, even though Frank isn’t calling ‘pull-pull-pull’ as the cox used to do when I was at Cambridge and training on the Cam for the annual race against Oxford, our deadly rivals in rowing as well as learning. The cox used to ride a horse, trotting along the towpath, shouting at us through a speaking-trumpet, the ass.”
Mr Benjamin joined them, dressed nearly as casually as Blue Peter, but with silk hose and stout buckled shoes. His round face beamed with satisfaction, and his eyes twinkled behind his pince-nez spectacles.
“Ha-ha! Coffee and biscuits! Very welcome!” He poured himself a black coffee and took a handful of biscuits.
“Does the cutting proceed well, Frank?”
“It does, Cap’n, it does. Len and his boys have got the feel of it now. How hard they must bear down on the saw, how much oil to drip, how often to stop and clear the swarf, which is the little slivers of cut metal, they can clog the teeth. They are doing so well I felt that I could leave them for a short while.” He popped another biscuit in his mouth and slurped some coffee.
“How long before the first cut is completed, Frank?” said the Captain, suddenly serious.
Mr Benjamin stared at the ceiling, one eye shut. “Twelve hours, more or less, Cap’n.”
“Hmm, then we must work through the night, I’m afraid, Frank. Time presses on me!”
“That will need lamps to light the cutting work. It cannot be done just by feel.”
“Peter, can you get a tent rigged over the raft? I do not want to show even a glim of light which may be seen from the sea.”
“That does not present any difficulties, Captain. There is sailcloth, and it can be painted black. Surely a screen around would be sufficient? A blindée, as the French would say? The men will need air in this heat, even at night.”
“Excellent! Yes, do that before twilight. Can you cope with that, Frank?”
“Surely, Captain. There are other strong men in the crew, and the bully-boys will need sleep. If the strong men are paired on the saw with one of Len’s boys in daylight they will learn how to do it, and we will be able to continue through the night, I suppose.”
“Are there any problems that you can foresee, either of you?”
“I am worried about the saw, Cap’n,” said Mr Benjamin, “a couple of the diamond teeth have shattered, and I fear that more will do the same, and as there are less teeth, there is more force upon those that remain, and we must make four cuts to open the … discus and gain access to its interior. Will the saw last long enough?”
“There are another seven diamond saws in the hold, Frank. I thought it best to be over-prepared. We cannot stop to go to the Antwerp diamond-bourse for more, after all.”
Mr Benjamin and Blue Peter digested this news in silence.
“Come, gentlemen, I could not advertise that we had a fortune in diamonds in the hold! The crew are loyal, and every one a rich man already, but the temptation to creep down and jimmy a few sparklers out would have been too much for some, I’m sure, even though they are very small diamonds.”
“Eight diamond saws, Captain?” said Blue Peter wonderingly. “They must have cost enough to make King Croesus curse!”
“Well, Peter, as I said, they are quite small diamonds, mostly of a poor yellowish colour, and not cut into many facets as are diamonds for jewellery, so I got them at a very good price!”
“Good gracious! Even so …” said Mr Benjamin, shaking his head. “In that case I think we may have the discus vessel opened in about forty-eight hours, two days at most, if we saw continuously night and day without respite.”
Mr Benjamin stood up and clamped his hat back on his head, bid them good-day and left to continue supervising the cutting.
“Sylvestre,” said Blue Peter in a low voice, “this is the extramundane craft in which you made your escape, is it not?”
“Ah, Peter! You have a quick and intuitive mind!” smiled Captain Greybagges. “Indeed it is! I was inexperienced in handling such things – a regular landlubber! – and I hit the waters of the bay moving at a great speed. I was lucky to keep my body and soul intact, but the craft was badly wrecked, the glass cupola upon its top smashed, and it sank like a stone.” He poured himself more coffee and took another biscuit. “Let us finish our coffee, then perhaps do a turn upon those blasted air-pumps to encourage the others!”
It took forty-two hours to saw four cuts in the hull of the extramundane craft, creating a square hole. Mr Benjamin and Loomin’ Len ceremoniously made the final strokes of the diamond saw and the last connecting finger of blue-green-tinted metal parted with an audible clink in the early hours of the second day, shortly after the ship’s bell rang the beginning of the first dog-watch. In the yellow glow of the whale-oil lamps two bully-boys lifted out the sawn section, expressing muttered surprise at how light it was, despite being as thick as a hatch-batten. A quiet spatter of applause came from the rail of the Ark de Triomphe, where most of the day-watch and the waisters had joined the night-watch to witness the feat.
Captain Greybagges clambered down onto the raft. He bowed a mock formal bow to Mr Benjamin, took the proffered lantern and was the first to peer into the dark inside of the lenticular extramundane craft. He was grinning broadly. He handed the lantern back to Mr Benjamin, who peered inside and grinned when he withdrew his head from the aperture.
“Not a trace of water or damp, Captain! And no obvious sign of damage. We are blessed with good fortune!”
The bully-boys hissed and muttered, outraged that Mr Benjamin should speak thus and attract bad luck.
“Quick, Frank! Knock your knuckles on the side of the ship! Hard as you can! Now whistle and turn round three times widdershins!” He took Mr Benjamin’s shoulders and spun him round anticlockwise. “Ah, there, Frank! Any ill turns of fate that may have been brought by your words are averted by our seamanlike wisdom and prompt action!” He winked at Mr Benjamin and continued in a lower voice. “You know what to do now, Frank. Carry on!”
Captain Greybagges climbed back up the side of the frigate with the aid of a dangling rope and addressed the assembled pirates.
“Mr Benjamin spoke without thinking, but he is right! Things are looking very fine and ship-shape! You are all curious as to what this strange metal sea-shell contains, but there is no treasure in there, nor any gold or jewels. BUT!” and he spoke in a loud commanding voice, “in there are some devices which we will need, which I expected to find, which will enable us to do some great things! You will see them as Mr Benjamin and his lads bring them into the ship, so you will see them and do not need to sneak onto the raft to get a peek, but they do not look like much, I tell you, just some metal boxes and drums. Do NOT get in Mr Benjamin’s way! Do NOT be foolish from mere curiosity! Do NOT touch these things! If you do you will be like an ape in a powder-magazine with a tinder-box! Let Mr Benjamin and his lads do their work, and I promise you that in the next weeks you will see some sights that will astound you. Wonders that shall amaze and delight you! Just you be patient awhile! NOW you day-watch fellows and you waisters must go to your hammocks and sleep, for there is more hard work to be done upon the dawn, which is close upon us. Hard work, yes indeed, and plenty of it, but labour handsomely, my fine buccaneers, and we shall have a little jollity before we leaves this bay. We shall have a boucan! Two oxen, three hogs and three sheep are coming to be roasted for your pleasure. Mr Bucephalus! Mr First Mate! Give these stout pirates a double ration of rum, so they may sleep as sound as babies! And the same for the dog-watches when they stands down.”
The pirates went to their hammocks, accompanied by a low mutter of talk, leaving just the night-watch on deck, and Mr Benjamin, his skilled men and Len and the bully-boys on the raft in the dim glow of the lamps.
The first device was brought out from the strange seashell in the mid-morning, and indeed it did not look like much; a lead-grey cylinder with some flanges, bumps and hollows on its smooth surface. Mr Benjamin, his eyes now red from lack of sleep, and his small team of apprentices-turned-pirates – a watchmaker, a scientific-instrument maker, two millwrights, a coppersmith and a maker of brass trumpets and horns – clustered around as two of Loomin’ Len’s bully-boys hefted the grey cylinder through the square hole and placed it on a wooden stollage. A block-and-tackle lifted it onto the deck and then it was carried below into the bowels of the ship. Another identical grey cylinder followed three hours later, and then another, and then another. Whispered reports flew round the frigate:
“They have bolted it to the flat plate on the iron keel, under the foremast! The larboard plate!” – “Mr Benjamin dropped a wrench on his foot and howled in anger and cursed most foully!” – “Now there are two of them bolted to the for’ard keel!” – “The watchmaker has had a finger crushed under the bottom of one when it slipped, but he has wrapped a silk kerchief around it and he works on! His finger, of course, you lubber, the kerchief went around his finger!” – “Now two of them are bolted to the aft keel, side-by-side!” – “They are joining all four of them to the copper bars, working to a secret plan of squiggles on a square of paper! No, nobody knows why! I said it was a secret plan, didn’t I, have you got ears of sailcloth?”
At dusk Captain Greybagges told Mr Benjamin to stop and rest, for he, his skilled team and the bully-boys has now been working without respite and sustained only snatched snacks for two-and-a-half days. Then he ordered them to stop, for they were unwilling to obey and would have defied him. After a hot meal and a pint of iced rum-grog they fell asleep where they sat or stood, still mumbling that they could carry on, surely they could, and friends carried them gently to their berths, removed their shoes and tip-toed away. Miss Chumbley and the leader of the island women tended to the clockmaker’s finger as he slept, cleaning the wound with warm water and vinegar, bandaging it with cotton cloth and splinting the finger with a thin strip of rawhide, sufficient to restrict movement but not so stiff as to cause discomfort. The watchmaker muttered between his snores, but did not awake.
Jack Nastyface and Jake Thackeray sat on the mizzenmast mainsail cross-trees, which had become their accustomed spot for a yarn and a smoke, eating a handful of Jake’s biscuits, watching the sun lift itself over the horizon. The air was still cool, but the brassy rising sun foretold a hot morning, which in Nombre Dios bay was no surprise.
“Look! There goes Mr Benjamin and his mechanics,” said Jake.
“And eager as foxhounds! Mr Benjamin has not even taken his air-bath!” said Jack. “But see, he gives his wig and spectacles to Len and douses his head under the seawater pump. And he goes straight for the raft, his hair still wet! What wonders will he bring out from the scallop-shell today?”
“Another fascinating grey lump of something-or-other, no doubt. What were those things?”
“The Cap’n knows, and maybe Mr B and his mechanics, but nobody else does, although they do not let that inhibit them from making guesses. Let us be about our business, Jake, for those mechanical fellows have shamed us all, and any slacking today will be much remarked, and not in a kindly way.” Jack slid down the backstay, and Jake climbed carefully through the lubber’s hole and down the ratlines. Pirates in the rigging called out “har-har, you old woman!” but he ignored their comments with the unshakable dignity of the one who holds the serving-ladle at mealtimes.
The next wonder to emerge from the ‘scallop-shell’ was not a grey cylinder, but a vaguely spherical object with flat faces, also grey, but a darker blue-grey. It was manhandled through the square aperture in the extramundane craft’s hull with great difficulty, for it was almost too big to fit and seemed to be very heavy. Whispers went from mouth to ear round the crew:
“Mr Benjamin called it a dodecahedron! No, I don’t know what that is!” – “It is stuck in the starboard companionway!” – “Mr Chippendale has been called! He has cut away the bulkheads, and now it moves again!” –
“Mr B says there must be no more squashed fingers, so Chips is cutting a hole in the ‘tween-deck planking!” –
“Bulbous Bill and Izzy are rigging a hoist, with a tackle suspended from the main-deck hanging knees!” – “It sits on the large plate in the middle of the keel, upon the centreline!” – “They are clamping it with bolts!” – “The copper bars are being attached to it! Mr B calls for tallow mixed with powdered copper! No, I don’t know why!” –
“It is in place! Mr B praises Len’s boys for their muscles and Chips, Bill and Izzy for the ingenious tackle-work!” –
“Now Mr B calls a break for food and water!”
Mr Benjamin and his team ate beef stew, tearing off hunks of bread to sop up the juices, drinking draughts of iced water, sitting on tool-chests and kegs in the waist of the frigate. The cook collected the plates, and Jake Thackeray brought them coffee and cakes on a tray. They lit pipes and sat at ease. Mr Benjamin took paper diagrams from a battered leather case and passed them around, listening to comments and questions. The members of the crew who contrived to walk nonchalantly past reported that the papers were as incomprehensible as Chinese – lines and squares, symbols, squiggles, hieroglyphs and runes – but that they were discussing them earnestly, and that the talk that was overheard made no more sense than the papers.
Captain Greybagges came up from the Great Cabin and joined them, accepting a cup of coffee and a slice of honey-glazed lardy-cake.
“Fine work, Mr Benjamin, and you fellows, too!” said the Captain. “I assume that there is only the one more thing to be retrieved?”
“Well, that and a few little odds and ends,” said Mr Benjamin thoughtfully, lifting his wig to scratch the top of his head.
“It is already getting a little late in the day, and you have worked as hard as Trojans. Do it tomorrow, for it may be delicate work, and you will need to be rested. There is the fitting of the new instruments to the binnacle to be done, which is not such heavy labour, as Mr Chippendale will do the necessary carpentry. Under your supervision, of course.”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n!” said Mr Benjamin with a nod and a smile. “That is a sensible plan. The connexions to the demiheptaxial mechanism are mostly already in place, thanks to Sid here,” he indicated the watchmaker with a nod, “so the work on the binnacle will go quickly.”
“And how is your hand today, Sid?” enquired the Captain.
“Painful, but bearable, begging your pardon, Cap’n. Luckily it is the left hand.” He raised the hand in question, the bandage now stained with black grease and smears of the tallow and copper-dust mixture, which was as bright as sign-writers’ gold paint in the low sun.
“Make sure you get that bandage changed and the wound cleaned by Miss Chumbley when you finish your work this evening, Sid. You are a pirate – a stout-hearted buccaneer, indeed! – but you are too young yet for a hook!” said the Captain.
The next morning Jack Nastyface and Jake Thackeray, on their accustomed perch on the mizzenmast mainsail cross-trees, noted that Mr Benjamin once again missed his air-bath, merely sousing his head under the seawater pump before climbing down to the raft and wriggling into the ‘scallop-shell’, followed by his men. Just after the ship’s bell rang the end of the forenoon watch, as pirates started to line up to have wooden kids filled with stew from the galley for the gun-deck messes, Loomin’ Len’s bully-boys carried a new object from the interior of the extramundane craft. A golden sphere, roughly the same diameter as a rum-keg. It gleamed a molten yellow in the bright sun, and the waiting mess-chiefs gasped in wonder.
The auriferous globe, tied with padded ropes onto a wooden dolly cushioned with rags, was block-and-tackled up to the deck with exquisite care, Mr Benjamin clucking protectively around it like a mother hen. It was then hoisted, again with the most diligent attention, to its platform, the platform on a diagonal strut between the foremast and the mainmast that had been fixed in Liver Pool. Mr Benjamin ascended the mainmast to the platform, moving slowly, assisted with great solicitude by the First Mate and two of his ‘foremast jacks, who placed Mr Benjamin’s feet on the ratlines and yards for him as he climbed, despite his growled protests.
The queue for lunch slowed as the pirates observed the performance above them, their faces tilted to the sky, and the cook roared at them to hurry up, you dogs, until he gave up and came out from his galley to join them watching silently, as no whispered reports were needed this time.
Mr Benjamin and his team attached the golden sphere to the platform with bolts, and joined the thin copper bars to it with clamps smeared with the tallow-and-copper-dust mixture. It took them the first quarter of the afternoon watch, and was performed without mishap, except that Sid the watchmaker, rendered clumsy by his gashed and broken finger, dropped a wrench, which hit the deck with a solid bang, gouging the planks but hitting no one. Mr Benjamin opened his mouth to rebuke him, but stopped himself and gave him a small smile instead. The golden sphere was then shrouded in a tarred-canvas cover, and Mr Benjamin and his men climbed carefully down. The pirates gave them an appreciative cheer as they stepped onto to the deck. The queue for lunch re-formed and Jake Thackeray filled their kids with salt-horse-and-pease stew, informing them cheerfully that he had kept it warm, but that he had some cold stew if there were any old women who might prefer it that way.
Mr Benjamin went to the Great Cabin to report to the Captain. Blue Peter was already there, examining the small model of the Ark de Triomphe in its spherical glass bottle on its shelf.
“Ah, Frank!” said Captain Greybagges cheerfully. “Excellent work! We must not tempt the fates by any display of egregious hubris, but I do not think they will begrudge us a well-earned glass of brandy and a sense of smug satisfaction! Here, let me help you to a glass…”
Mr Benjamin took his brandy, a generous slug in a crystal tumbler, and raised it:
“Aye-aye, Cap’n! To success in your endeavours!” he cried, adding to himself in an undertone, “whatever they may be…”
“Indeed, yes,” said Blue Peter. “I will drink to that!” He caught Mr Benjamin’s eye and nodded towards the ship-in-a-bottle. Mr Benjamin stood beside him and regarded the model of the Ark de Triomphe.
“Oh, my!” he said after a pause. “You have laid your plans deeply, Cap’n. Very deeply indeed. I had not noticed that little gold bead on the model before. The close fit of the dodecahedron and the grey-cylinder things to their positions on the iron keel-pieces greatly impressed me, but it seems that you have anticipated this in much greater detail than I could have imagined.”
“I hope it gives you confidence, Frank,” said Captain Greybagges carefully. “I have demanded a lot of trust from everybody, and everybody has generously granted me that trust, for which you and the entire crew have my deepest gratitude. You have questions, though, they clamour in your thoughts, I can see it upon your face. All I can still say is that …”
“…everything will become clear in time!” said Blue Peter and Mr Benjamin, almost in complete unison. Captain Greybagges barked with laughter.
“Never has a captain of pirates had a better crew!” grinned the Captain. “I raise my glass to you!” He took a swallow of brandy. “We are not yet finished, though, the game is not yet won. I honour and value your patience with me and my annoying secretiveness, but you will understand my reasons before all is done. Come, sit down, the pair of you, and tell me how things progress. You first, Frank.”
“The components from the discus – or the scallop-shell, as the crew are calling it – have been transferred to this frigate. Some small things are yet to be removed, but Sid and the other fellows are doing that as we speak. The fitting of the instruments and the little brass thingummijigs to the extended binnacle is now done, and they are connected to the demiheptaxial mechanism, except for a final look to see that all is well. A few bolts to tighten, a few joints and bearings to be greased, that sort of thing. All complete before lunchtime tomorrow, at the latest.”
“Peter?”
“The cannon have been modified as you required, their flintlocks replaced by the new firing devices. Torvald Coalbiter is not entirely happy, of course, as he does not really understand the electrical fluid or how it can ignite gunpowder, even though he saw the barrel exploded by lightning that time, but he is doing what he is told. He, too, has faith in your schemes, Captain. He is in awe of your green beard. He believes it to be magical, you see, like his grandmother, who was a witch, he says.”
“I am a man of reason, a lover of natural philosophy,” said Mr Benjamin slowly, “but I am beginning to think something like that myself…” He raised a hand to forestall an answer. “But I certainly agree with your pirate crew, They are curious, of course, but they are intrigued. They will go with you to the ends of the Earth, and not ask questions now, I think, because they don’t wish to spoil the surprise. Let’s be about our work.”
Mr Benjamin left the Great Cabin. Blue Peter murmured “to the ends of the earth, Captain?” with a wry grin, revealing his pointed filed teeth, and left too, shutting the door gently behind him.
Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges stood upon his quarterdeck, dressed in his full pirate-captain’s rig of black pants tucked into black spit-shined sea-boots, black shirt, black justaucorps coat and a black tricorne hat. In his belt was a cutlass and two pistols, and his green beard seemed almost to glow emerald when it caught the midday sun. He felt a mixture of satisfaction, hope and pride as he surveyed his ship, the frigate Ark de Triomphe. All the necessary work had now been done, even to small details. The canvas screens that had disguised the frigate’s low predatory silhouette had not been re-mounted, but a broad band of a yellowish buff had been painted along the hull at the level of the gun-ports to make her more resemble a merchant ship to the casual eye. The canvas name-plates covering the frigate’s real name on the stern and on sides of the bow had been replaced with better ones of thin wood, the false identity lettered bravely in characters of shining copper, for one of the young pirates, once the apprentice of a paint-maker, had compounded a metallic lacquer from a little of the copper dust, perhaps inspired by the shining smears on Mr Benjamin’s waistcoat and Sid’s bandage.
Blue Peter came onto the quarterdeck, attired in a sky-blue coat with gold buttons, a white silk shirt, pale-grey breeches, white hose and shoes with gold buckles. A multi-coloured silk sash around his waist held a short cutlass with a brass knuckle-duster hilt and the long-barrelled Kentucky pistol. His huge hands glittered and flashed with gemstone rings.
“Peter, do you not find the nom-de-guerre of this frigate oddly apposite?” said the Captain. “Mr Benjamin thought of it.”
Blue Peter leaned over the stern-rail to read the inscription upside-down.
“I am not sure, but I am glad it amuses you, Captain. They will not let me see Miriam. Those island women barred the way to her cabin, and would not move an inch, even though I showed my teeth and growled.”
“It is the custom. You would have brought bad luck upon yourself, Peter,” laughed the Captain, “and the island women know that you are not a brute, even if you look like one, har-har!”
Captain Greybagges leaned over the stern-rail to admire the new name-board once more. The former paint-maker’s apprentice was using up the last of the copper paint to add highlights to the carved curlicues around the stern windows.
“Good work, Albert!” said the Captain. “Very tasteful, I find it!”
“Why, thank’ee Cap’n! Us slab-boys do know a thing or two, har-har!”
Blue Peter and the Captain walked to the ship’s wheel, the binnacle in front of it now much enlarged to hold panels of levers and a number of dials with engraved brass faces and blued-steel hands. A complicated device of brass and steel was mounted in the centre of the new binnacle, protected by a glass bell-jar.
“What is that, Captain?” Blue Peter pointed to the device. “It resembles the bastard love-child of an armilliary sphere, an orrery and an astrolabe.”
“Ah-ha! You are not so very far from the truth, Peter. It is called a torquetum, although it is more complex than the instrument from which it gets its name.”
Blue Peter nodded, but asked no further questions. I am committed to this venture, he thought, for good or ill, and there are no answers that will change that. During the night he had dreamt a confused dream, in which the leopardess with cutlass-teeth and cannon-claws had visited him again. He remembered an amicable and rambling discussion, but could recall no details of what was said. They had walked together in the African bush, then rested together in the shade of a baobab tree. As part of a friendly tussle, as one may have with a playful feline, the leopardess had climbed on top of him and sat on his chest. He had awoken at that moment, feeling short of breath, to find two yellow eyes staring down at him in the dark. He had twitched with shock, for dreams should not become real, and then the ship’s cat had jumped from his chest with a hiss. Blue Peter had shook his head to banish the shards of dream. The black cat, on the floor of his cabin, had looked him in the eyes, made a rrowwll! noise, then slid through the ajar door. He had left his bunk and followed it, feeling foolish. The black cat paced slowly, its tail twitching from side to side, not looking back, then darted up the companionway. Blue Peter had followed it up the steps, and stopped with just his head above the level of the planking. Captain Greybagges stood on the quarterdeck, wearing his black nightshirt, his bare feet a couple of paces from Blue Peter’s face. The Captain stood quite still, staring up at the night sky, a velvet blue-black sky full of bright stars. Blue Peter noticed, with an eerie feeling, that the green beard was moving as though in a slight breeze. There was no wind that Blue Peter could detect, but the green beard waved nonetheless, small ripples rolling from the Captain’s chin down to the ends of the whiskers. Of the ship’s black cat there was no sign. Blue Peter stepped backwards down the companionway ladder, carefully and soundlessly, and returned to his bunk, where he fell immediately into a deep and dreamless slumber.
In the light of the day Blue Peter was not sure whether he really had been led by a pussycat to observe the Captain communing with the stars, or whether it was a mere continuation of the dream of the African savanna. He felt that it was a good omen either way, although he was not sure why.
He was brought from his reverie by Mr Benjamin, Bulbous Bill Bucephalus and Israel Feet clumping up the steps to the quarterdeck, talking loudly and cheerfully. They were all dressed in their best clothes: Mr Benjamin looking a little hot in a fine buff coat, waistcoat and breeches and a new wig, with a sword with a fine maroon-leather scabbard and baldric, his eyes sparkling merrily behind his pince-nez spectacles; the First Mate and the sailing-master in the traditional pirate uniform of dark fustian knee-britches and weskit, colourful kerchiefs on their heads, knotted at the back with the corners hanging down, bright sashes around their waists with a tasteful collection of weapons tucked into them, only so much hardware as was appropriate for a party among friends.
Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges rubbed his hands together, grinning gleefully.
“Har-har! Me hearties! Bill, Izzy, are the look-outs and their reliefs assigned and instructed? Are they content with the recompense for their forbearance and for missing a little of the grog and the dancing?”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n! They are, and they are!” they cried back, touching their forelocks.
“Then let us take ourselves ashore and get this boucan started, for I has a powerful desire to grow my beard just a little!”
The old priest’s hair was grey, his chin whiskery, his eyes red and his cassock worn and patched, but he asked Blue Peter the question in a firm and resonant voice:
“Pee-tar, vis accípere Miri-aam, hic praeséntem in tuam legítiman uxórem juxta ritum sanctae matris Ecclésiae?”
Blue Peter answered “Volo!”
The old priest turned to Miss Miriam Andromeda Chumbley, and asked:
“Miri-aam, Vis accípere Pee-tar., hic praeséntem in tuum legítimun maritum juxta ritum sanctae matris Ecclésiae?”
In a loud voice, trembling a little from nerves, Miss Chumbley answered “Volo!”
The priest then blessed them with the sign of the cross, as he said:
“Ego conjúngo vos in matrimónium. In nominee Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti. Amen!”
“He says that you are now man and wife!” whispered Captain Greybagges, who was giving away the bride, at her request. “Pass him the ring, Izzy!”
“Bill’s got it, ain’t he?” replied the First Mate, and there was a brief sotto-voce argument between the two before the ring – a gold band with a rose-pink diamond – was found in the First Mate’s waistcoat pocket and placed on the bride’s finger. Captain Greybagges was ready to say “you may now kiss the bride!” but Blue Peter forestalled him by lifting the new Mrs Ceteshwayoo off her feet and kissing her lovingly, passionately and lingeringly. The pirates roared their approval, cheering repeatedly, cheering so deafeningly that the monkey-birds flapped from their perches in the surrounding jungle and circled overhead, squawking loudly as though adding their approval, too.
Blue Peter thanked the priest in bad Spanish, and slipped a reale d’or into his hand as he shook it.
The bride threw her bouquet over her shoulder. The eldest of the island women caught it, and looked at it in surprise.
“Oh, dear!” said Bulbous Bill, wiping away a tear. “Do they not look lovely together, Cap’n!”
It is true, thought Captain Greybagges, they look wonderful. The bride’s wedding-dress is not white, but the island women and the old tars have done a magnificent job. You would not guess it was made from cut-up signal flags. It looks very colourful and flattering. A white gown would have looked a little pale and anaemic next to Blue Peter in his finery, but instead she out-shines him like a firework display. A prancing Froggie dressmaker from Paris itself could not have stitched her a better one from the silks of Cathay. And the island women have done her proud, too! They look just right as bridesmaids, all in those nice boxy dresses with the wide sleeves – kimonos, did they call ‘em? – even with those sticks in their piled-up hair, alike to knitting-needles in balls of wool.
Blue Peter and his bride were walking among the crowding pirates, Blue Peter accepting handshakes and good wishes and Miriam offering her cheek for good-luck kisses. Captain Greybagges looked around and caught the eye of the cook and raised an eyebrow. The cook, attending to the barbecue, a white chef’s hat jammed on his head, nodded happily and waved a huge carving-knife.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” roared the Captain, clapping his hands. “The victuals are ready! Let the boucan begin!”
Somebody pushed a tankard of iced rum-punch into his hand, and was gone before he could turn and thank them. He sipped it, and smacked his lips appreciatively. Behind him a violin struck up a sprightly jig. A concertina joined it, followed by a fife and a drum catching the tune and embroidering upon it, and a small ripple of applause and catcalls, ironic but cheerful, told him that somebody had started dancing.
“Curse and damn it!” snarled Captain Greybagges. “Why must the damned-and-blasted breeze be so bloody contrary? On this of all days, too!”
The wind, light and steady, had been on-shore since dawn, keeping the pirate frigate Ark de Triomphe trapped in the almost-circular Nombre Dios Bay. Everything had now been done that could be done. The last action had been at midday; the sinking of the emptied husk of the ‘scallop-shell’ to the bottom of the bay once again, and the towing of the raft to the shore for the local people to use as they wished. The ship was ready, the crew were ready – despite more than a few sore heads from the previous night’s boucan – and the Captain was certainly ready, yet the wind defied them all. The Ark de Triomphe swung by a single anchor, her bow pointed toward the open sea, her sails hanging loosely on the yards waiting to catch the puff of wind which would push her out of the bay and away from land.
As the Captain stomped grumpily up and down the quarterdeck, Blue Peter tried to compose his features into a stern expression. He had already done so many times that day, but at even the tiniest distraction – a seagull crying overhead, a sudden squawking of the monkey-birds in the distant jungle, a laugh from some foremast-jack in the rigging – his face would instantly rearrange itself into a look of the most fatuous and idiotic happiness.
The night before at sunset when he and his new bride had attempted to slip away from the boucan to his cabin on the frigate they were waylaid before he could launch the skiff from the beach. Torvald Coalbiter and a party of gunners had respectfully asked the couple to accompany them, as they had a small wedding-present they wished to present, begging your pardons most kindly. It would have been churlish to refuse, so he and the newly-minted Mrs Miriam Ceteshwayoo had grudgingly gone with them. Torvald Coalbiter had led them along a narrow jungle-path, until they had come to a clearing where there was, to Blue Peter’s amazement, a cottage in the Spanish style. “It was the Spanish governor’s, until the town was abandoned,” explained Coalbiter. “Me and the lads found it when we was out a-hunting for the jungle-fowl, and we’ve cleaned it up for you both as best we could.” The gunners had indeed ‘cleaned it up’; the thick undergrowth had been hacked back, the stucco walls whitewashed and the roof repaired with split-wood shingles, all with thorough-going nautical efficiency. Torvald Coalbiter had ceremoniously ushered them in through the yellow-painted front door. The rooms were lit with oil-lamps and the waxed parquet floors gleamed in their glow. A mahogany dresser held covered dishes of food “for you and the lady to partake of a late supper, if you wish” and a dining-table had settings for two places with silver cutlery, crystal glasses and a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice (the ordinary wooden bucket had been ruthlessly scrubbed and waxed like the floor, its iron hoops polished, and would not have shamed the Palace of Versailles). While an enchanted Miriam had admired the décor, distracted by the vases of fresh flowers and the thin white canvas swagged over the windows, Torvald Coalbiter opened a door of oiled oak and indicated the bedroom. Through the doorway Blue Peter saw an imposing canopied four-poster bed, with clean white sheets tucked in and turned down with geometrical precision. Torvald Coalbiter whispered discreetly: “The side-chamber has a wash-stand and the heads, which is alike to a throne. You must lift the seat to find the pot, and there is another pot in the little cupboard. We gunners shall keep watch outside so nothing shall disturb you and your lady.” And then he and the gunners had removed themselves, vanishing almost magically, silently closing the front door behind them.
Alone in the cottage, Blue Peter and Miriam had regarded each other with serious expressions, until Blue Peter grinned and pulled back a chair: “Will you be seated for the feast, my lady?” he had said, with mock servile unctuousness. Miriam had grinned back at him, curtsied and settled herself on the chair as he slid it forward. “Will you now take a glass of champagne with me, gracious lady?” he had whispered in her ear, before kissing her neck gently.
“Peter, you seem to be a-practicing for a gurning contest, such as village yokels do when they make faces through a horse-collar to see who can look the silliest.” Captain Greybagges drew a hand over his face. “Oh, sod it! I do apologize! I am strung tighter than a fiddle-string! I wish to get away from here. I am gravid with eagerness! I am with child with impatience for us to be on our way! I do apologise for my unpleasantness of speech, Peter, sincerely I do!”
“There’ll be a seaward wind after sunset, you may lay to that Cap’n,” said Bulbous Bill Bucephalus, who was by the wheel with Mr Benjamin, explaining the parts of the new binnacle to two of the old pirates and two of the new pirates; the old chief steersmen and two trainees.
Captain Greybagges went to answer, but a cry from the maintop look-out interrupted him; “A sail, Cap’n! A sail! A sail to east-by-nor’-east! A sail!”
The Captain stood stock-still for a moment, then called down to the waist:
“First Mate! Go you up the mainmast and have a butchers! Here, take my spy-glass, and don’t drop the damn thing!”
Israel Feet took the Dolland telescope in its leather case and slung the strap over his shoulder then went up the rigging as agile as a monkey. Captain Greybagges drummed his fingers on the larboard rail, frowning as he stared at the horizon through the mouth of the bay.
“What does ‘a butchers’ mean, Captain?” said Blue Peter, to ease the tension on the quarterdeck.
“It is the cockaignie rhyming-slang, Peter. ‘Butcher’s hook’ rhymes with ‘look’, and long use has shortened it, and the desire to be even more opaque, of course, because it is thieves’ cant.” The Captain gave Blue Peter a bleak smile.
“Cap’n!” the First Mate’s voice came down from the maintop. “Tain’t no fat merchantman, I do lay to that! The sails and rig has themselves a rakish swagger to my eyes, paste me like bloater if I speaks untrue!”
“Keep the glass upon it, Izzy!” roared the Captain at the maintop, and in a lower voice; “Peter, Bill, Frank, we will prepare for action, if you please. Peter, guns loaded and primed, both sides, but not yet run out, deck guns loaded, too, but no hostile signs to show, the crews to lie flat besides the carronades to stay out of sight, if they must. Bill, two men with axes ready to cut the anchor-cable on my word – only upon my word, mark you! – and the longboat, with the strongest oarsmen as crew, ready on deck to launch and tow us if need be. Mr Benjamin, ready the sickbay for casualties, if you would be so good. To work, gentlemen!”
Any cheerfulness that remained from the previous night’s festivities evaporated and was replaced by a sense of impending danger. The crew, even the stupidest, could see that the Ark de Triomphe was in a perilous position if the approaching ship was hostile. Caught in an enclosing bay, penned in by a mischievous breeze from the sea, the frigate’s options were limited and she was vulnerable to a determined foe.
“This is what I had hoped would not happen,” muttered the Captain. “I knew that if we were here too long some tittle-tattle of our presence would spread, and I thought I had judged things aright, so that we would be gone before anybody came a-sniffing around. Even if no rumour reached the wrong ears there was still the element of chance. Some ship coming here to take on water, or just to anchor overnight, or for whatever reason. Damn!” He roared up to the maintop;
“Izzy! What see you?”
“I think she be a freebooter, Cap’n! She be low over the decks, and the crew be many! She be a-headin’ direct toward this bay!”
“Good news, maybe, or bad, depending upon her master,” mused the Captain to Bulbous Bill. “Mind you, if it be …”
The Captain nodded to himself, as though coming to a decision.
“Bill, belay the longboat. Tell the men to re-stow it and send the oarsmen back to their positions. Pray call Mr Benjamin to the quarterdeck, at his earliest convenience.”
Israel Feet called reports down as the ship approached. She was indeed a pirate-ship, beyond all doubt, heavily manned and preparing for a fight, although taking some precautions to conceal her intentions. The First Mate’s experienced pirate’s eyes, aided by the spy-glass, saw through the impostures with ease, although a merchant captain might have been fooled easily enough, his own fervent wish for a trouble-free voyage helping him to delude himself.
The pirate-ship was nearly to the entrance of the bay and easily visible from the level of the deck, so Captain Greybagges called the First Mate down from the maintop, told him to arm the crew ready for an engagement, and reclaimed his telescope. He peered through it at the approaching vessel.
“Ah, damn it!” he hissed. “It is Morgan! Bloody Captain bloody Bloody Morgan, curse the jumped-up Welsh midget! He means us no good, my friends, I am sure!”
Captain Greybagges slammed the telescope shut, and turned to the binnacle.
“Bill, Frank, I had intended to try this out at sea, where we would be alone from horizon to horizon, so that I would not reveal my hand, but my hand is now forced by that odious little Welsh jackanapes, so I shall take that risk! Frank, take your two best men and go below. Close the main shunt from the dodecahedron to connect the electrical fluid. Lock it in place, so it shall not work loose, then cover it again immediately with the wooden case. Wear the thick horsehide gloves at all times, except when removing and replacing the case! Then return back here as quick as you may, in case I need you to fix something. Bill, we have discussed the theory of this enough times, but now we must see to the practice! Follow my orders to the letter, if you please!”
Captain Greybagges stood next to the binnacle, quivering with impatience. Morgan’s ship entered the mouth of Nombre Dios Bay.
“He is an excellent seaman, is Morgan, for all that he is a jumped-up fool! See how he has positioned himself so that he has enough way on his barky to lay it alongside us, even though the on-shore breeze will lessen in the loom of the land! Oh, what a treacherous dog! Now that he is Governor of Jamaica I believe he means to please his new master, King Charles, by sending him our heads!”
Mr Benjamin came huffing-and-puffing back onto the quarterdeck with his two assistants; Sid the watchmaker had a leather sheath over his wounded finger, tied around his wrist with a thong. He and the other, a millwright from Sheffield, looked apprehensive, but nevertheless agog with excitement.
Captain Greybagges stepped forward to the front of the quarterdeck and grasped the rail.
“My friends! Lusty buccaneers! Harken to me well!” he roared. “I promised you wonders, and now you shall see one! Take hold of something so you shall not fall, especially you jacks in the rigging! Take hold now, and keep a-hold!”
The Captain turned back to Bulbous Bill Bucephalus at the binnacle.
“Bill, move the lever marked ‘X-ENGAGE’ down until it locks! Good! Steersmen at the wheel, be ready for my orders! Bill, move the lever marked ‘X-FORCE’ – slowly! gently! – upwards, but only until the dial reads one on the scale!”
The sailing master obeyed, and with a slight but distinct lurch the Ark de Triomphe started to move forwards.
Started to move forwards against the wind! There was a shriek from the rigging, but no thud of a body hitting the deck. Several of the pirate crew on the deck staggered and fell over, despite their sea-legs.
“I told you lubbers to hang on!” roared the Captain. “Now cut the anchor-cable! Don’t just stand there with your bloody mouths open, you fools! Cut the bloody cable now!”
There was the thunk! of axes as the two hefty pirates on the foredeck roused themselves from their amazement and attacked the cable. The cable parted just as the frigate’s slow forward movement started to bring it taut. It fell into the sea, the splash audible in the stunned silence.
“Don’t bloody stand there, you lubbers! Don’t think! Get about your work now! Do your appointed tasks now, or, so help me, I shall shoot you dead while you stand with your bloody mouths open gawping like bloody moon-calves! Now go!”
Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges drew a pistol from his belt, fired it in the air, threw the discharged pistol to the deck and drew another one to reinforce his threat. The crew ran to their positions, a mutter of oaths and expletives breaking the stunned silence.
The Ark de Triomphe moved slowly forward against the wind, against all nautical principles and against all reason. Morgan’s vessel had now come into the bay, heading straight for the Ark de Triomphe.
“Steersmen! Twenty points to port, now!” roared Captain Greybagges. The steersmen obeyed, their eyes wide and their mouths still open from shock and surprise.
“Bill, move up the X-FORCE lever until the dial shows two!”
The Ark de Triomphe increased speed in complete defiance of the wind and curved to port, cutting a wake, its sails flapping uselessly, driven back against the masts by the light contrary breeze and the frigate’s forward motion. Morgan’s vessel came on, slowing now that the wind was lessening in the shadow of the land.
Captain Greybagges jumped down from the quarterdeck into the waist and bellowed down the companionway;
“Peter! Roll out the starboard guns! Be ready to fire, to fire as they bear, but do not fire unless upon my express order! Do you hear me?” A faint acknowledgement echoed up from the gun-deck. “Repeat what I said!” Blue Peter repeated the Captain’s exact words. “Good! Stand ready upon my word!” The Captain ran back up to the quarterdeck. There was a thump-thump-thump-thump as the gun-ports opened, and a rumble as the guns rolled out.
“Bill, reduce the X-FORCE back to one! Steersmen, now to starboard, thirty points! Quick as you can!”
Captain Greybagges stood breathing heavily, making an obvious strong effort of will to compose himself.
“Bill, steersmen, we are going to cross Morgan’s stern now, and if the little sod makes one move – just one bloody move! – I shall rake him, and be damned to him! Steersmen, straighten her up now, and be prepared to go port-thirty upon my command.”
The Ark de Triomphe curved around Morgan’s ship and across its stern. Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges stood at the starboard quarterdeck rail, noting Blue Peter at the foot of the companionway steps, waiting ready to relay the order to fire to the gun-deck. There was an almost complete silence. Captain Greybagges swept off his black tricorne hat in an elegant gesture.
“Why, Captain Morgan, my compliments! I suggest that if you are prepared to lower yourself so far as to go a-hunting of your old friends – your old shipmates, who never did you any harm! – then you should at least find yourself a seaworthy vessel! One that can sail in these capricious coastal breezes. A good day to you!”
He made an elegant bow, one leg forward, sweeping his hat across his chest. The Ark de Triomphe slid past the stern of Morgan’s ship, its sails flapping. He replaced his hat and turned to the steersmen.
“Port thirty, if you please, straighten her up, then out the bay-mouth to the sea. Bill, take her back up to two on the dial, so that we may get expeditiously away from here.”
The Ark de Triomphe slid through the bay-mouth and into the open sea, beginning to pitch a little as it hit the ocean waves. Sylvestre de Greybagges started to laugh, and laughed and laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Oh, my! Oh, my! That was good! Bloody Captain bloody Bloody Morgan stood there in his fine plum-coloured coat with his jaw on his chest and his eyes popped out of his head like organ-stops! He was so close I could almost have reached across and tweaked his long nose! He could not have been more stunned if I had hit him on the head with a caulking-mallet! He was so utterly dumbfounded that I expect when he recovers his wits he will babble like an idiot, poop his britches and then fall over in a swoon! Oh, dear me! Oh, dearie, dearie me!”
“They have run aground,” said Bulbous Bill, looking astern from the aft rail with the Captain’s telescope.
“Let me see!” The Captain grabbed the spy-glass, looked and burst into another attack of mirth, slapping his thigh.
“Oh, dearie me! It just gets better! They must have stood there as still as marble statues, their mouths agape, until their barky hit the beach!”
The Ark de Triomphe slid through the sea, now once again under the power of her sails alone, with a fair wind at her starboard quarter. The sea was quiet, merely rippled, and above her the sky was blue with a scattering of clouds, the sun lowering itself down to the horizon behind them as dusk approached, its light giving the white sails a rosy glow.
“I heard your words to Morgan, Captain,” said Blue Peter, “but I would give a bagful of gold to have seen his face!”
“It was comical, Peter! I have not seen anything so damned amusing in a very long time,” Captain Greybagges grinned a wolfish grin, “and then he ran aground, too!”
“Why did you not give me the order to fire? He had come for us – for you, who once sailed with him! – with malice in his heart, and greedy for more honours from the King, even though he is as rich as several Pharoahs already.”
“Well, Peter, that might perhaps have made him a martyr; ‘Brave, loyal, honest Captain Morgan murdered by the vile treacherous pirate Captain Greenbeard!’ the broadsheets would have thundered! ‘We must scour the oceans and destroy this wicked highwayman of the high seas! England can ask for no less!’ but now it will be rather ‘That wily rogue Greenbeard outsails and out-manoeuvres wooden-headed Captain Tom Fool Morgan, even showing mercy and allowing him to keep his miserable life, and then diddles him into running his own ship up onto the beach, the clumsy idiot!’ Which is much better in the long run of things, you must confess. And I did not wish to cause great slaughter to his crew, who are not really to blame for Morgan’s ambitions, after all, even though they sail under his command.”
“Um. Even so…” said Blue Peter, looking doubtful.
“Oh, Lord! You gunners are a bloodthirsty lot, aren’t you? I know that a raking is the supreme challenge for a master gunner, but have you ever raked a ship yourself?”
“Well, no…”
“I haven’t, either, and I would if I had to, but only if there was no possible alternative, for it is not something that should be done lightly. I conversed once with an old Navy captain who had managed that feat. He had taken his ship across his enemy’s stern, each one of his guns firing as it bore, each one of those thirty-two-pound cannon-balls smashing through the stern windows and ripping through the whole length of the ship – boom! boom! boom! boom! – and he said that as they drew away from the enemy ship she lay stricken in the water like dead animal, with blood pouring in great gouts from all her gun-ports, alike to water gushing from broken guttering in a rain-squall. He said that all his crew started muttering prayers for their poor enemies when they saw that, some of them crying, and they were men hardened by many a sea-battle. He said he had never forgotten the sight and never would, and that he prayed every night for forgiveness, and lit candles for the souls of the dead every Sunday without fail, and still sometimes he would dream evil dreams and awake weeping for what he had done. Don’t wish that upon yourself, Peter! Especially for such a dunce as Morgan! Even though he was ready to fire upon us, for I saw the red glow of his gunners’ linstocks through his gun-ports as we crossed his wake. That is so typical of Morgan! He is such a skinflint that he has not got flint-locks for his cannon, rich though he is.”
“I was not eavesdropping,” said Mr Benjamin, standing up suddenly from behind the binnacle, holding a spanner, grease smudges on his face and hands, “but I agree with the Captain … Cap’n … sorry, I still struggle with naval nomenclature.”
“Oh, you gave me a start!” said Captain Greybagges. “I hadn’t seen you lurking there!”
“I was checking the orientation of the shafts and greasing the elbows of the rods. Everything is as it should be.”
“You have examined the main shunt, I presume? No sign of sparking? No excessive heating? No charring of the wooden parts?”
“We looked at it first, Cap’n. It was just as it was when we covered it.”
“I am relieved at that, Frank. Please tell me there was something wrong somewhere, otherwise I might feel that the fates are mocking us.”
“The port-side connexion to the gun-deck had loosened – probably by the flexing of the hull – but it is duplicated on the starboard side, with a cross-over, so no harm could have come from it. We have tightened it, and put in an s-bend to allow it more freedom, so the natural working of the ship’s timbers puts no further strain upon it.”
“Aah! You ease my mind, Frank! There was something amiss! The Muslims regard perfection as unlucky, and always put a small error in even their most flawless silk carpets and alabaster arabesques. I understand their caution!”
“As to what you were saying to Peter, Cap’n,” continued Mr Benjamin, “it seems to me that by not blowing Morgan to kingdom come you have also not drawn attention to yourself, and that you may not do that because you have now a ship that moves in complete disregard of the wind and tide. I think I mentioned to you before that my idea for an air-powered cannon drew all kinds of unwelcome attention to me. Men are fascinated by engines of death, after all. I confess that I do understand Peter’s enthusiasm. Indeed, the temptation to develop the air-weapon was not inspired by the fame, the friendship of the powerful or the wealth that it may have brought to me, but rather by the sheer fascination of building an engine of such power and then using it. We are creatures full of curiosity, and nothing tempts us so much as a cannon primed and ready to fire! The possibilities intrigue us! “As swift as a pellet out of a gunne When fyre is in the powder runne,” said the sage Chaucer. Things other than guns can fire the imagination by their possibilities. I am amazed still by what you have done– a ship that moves in defiance of the winds! – and I see that such a wonder would be regarded with acquisitive eyes by many, because of the possibilities. A nation possessing such power would dominate the globe! To advertise the existence of a self-propelled ship would have been foolish. As things are, Morgan’s account, if he is so indiscreet as to give one, will arouse howls of mocking laughter, the attempt of a beaten man to explain his dismal failure by an improbable tale. Yet I still sympathize with Peter’s disappointment! How fine it must be to fire a perfect broadside, and bring a loathed foe – callous and overbearing in his pride and arrogance! – to well-deserved ruin in an instant!”
“Well, Frank, Peter may well have his chance to perform a perfect broadside before too long, and you will be there to witness it, I promise you. A self-propelled ship is indeed a wonder, yet now I will show you another wonder! Night approaches, and we are alone in an empty ocean. Even the sea-gulls have abandoned us. There are no curious eyes to witness us, and no wagging tongues to spread rumours. Where are Bill and Izzy?”
Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges paced the quarterdeck while the two were called.
“I am as nervous as a cat!” said the Captain to Blue Peter. The ship’s cat chose that moment to swagger across the quarterdeck and curl up next to the rail, exhibiting no nervousness at all.
“Ah, Izzy! Please get the jacks to furl all sails, and then bring all of them, even the look-outs, down on deck.”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n!” said the First mate.
“Bill, please engage X-FORCE and take it slowly to two.”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n!”
“Bill, you have an understanding of the other levers now?”
“I does, Cap’n. The force levers be the directions, and the little levers below them on the board are the rotations about them directions. The one below X being roll, the one below Y being pitch and the one below Z being yaw. I has that firmly in mind, Cap’n.”
The sails were now furled on the yards and the crew were all on deck, looking expectant but puzzled. The Ark de Triomphe still cut through the sea, driven now by the mysterious X-FORCE alone.
“Well, no point in delaying!” said Captain Greybagges. “Bill, engage the Z-FORCE and then, on my word, take it slowly up to five … UP SHIP!”
Bulbous Bill Bucephalus moved the Z-FORCE lever carefully and precisely, and the pirate frigate Ark de Triomphe, her hull creaking just a little, lifted slowly out of the sea and rose majestically up towards the clouds.
**********
Captain William Schovelle sat in his cabin, humming a tune. His account-books and bills of lading lay before him on his desk, in the light from a lantern. A good cargo: Dutch crockery (very nice blue-and-white glazed earthenware; he would keep a service for his wife, and maybe one for her dim-witted brother, too, if he felt generous); French wine (although one of the damn’ barrels had sprung, wine lost and some of the crew now had secret caches of claret, caught in hats and pannikins as the leaking barrel was brought on deck for repair); English cotton cloth in bright patterns and woollen cloth in plain dark sober shades: some pewter; some brassware; Sheffield-made steel blades for sickles and scythes, and a ballast of pig-iron. A good cargo to land in the American colonies, and his strategy of going further to the south in the crossing had proved itself. A less-experienced master would not sail at the lower latitudes of the trade winds and risk becoming becalmed, but Captain Schovelle would run that risk for the reduced risk of piracy. The winds had been light and had veered and backed quite remarkably at times, but his ship had not once lain hove-to in a dead calm, her sails flapping. And the ocean had been empty, nobody this far south. He was feeling, truth be told, a little smug.
Captain Schovelle poured himself a glass of rum, and he was just in the process of lighting a clay pipe with a taper lit from the lantern when there was a discreet knocking at the door of his cabin.
“Enter!” he commanded, in a voice made deep by years of bellowing orders into the teeth of gales full of rain, sleet, snow, hailstones and the occasional cannon-ball.
“Why, Tack! Come in my lad!”
He was fond of his nephew, Caractacus Todd, who, despite being the son of his wife’s wooden-headed brother Theobald, was indeed as sharp as a tack. The young man seemed distressed.
“You seem distressed, young man. What ails thee?”
Tack’s mouth opened and closed several times, then:
“Uncle Bill, I saw something strange,” he whispered. “Just now. Nobody else saw it”
“What did you see, then?”
“I find it difficult to speak of it. I fear you will laugh at me, or think that I have lost my reason.”
“Tack, you are fourteen years old, but you are a sailor, and so you will have to take a scare once in a while. Here, take this rum, sip it and sit for a moment to collect your wits before you tell me.”
The young man sat and sipped the rum.
“When I was your age, or not much older,” said Captain Schovelle, “I was on an old leaky barque, sailing off the coast of Newfoundland. In the dog-watches I used to trail a fishing-line from the taffrail, for I am as fond of cod and taters as the next man. One night I was pulling in a fish when something snatched it off the line, I felt the line go taut and snap. Looking down, by the light of a gibbous moon, I saw a monster that had come up from the deep. It had the tentacles of an octopus, a beak – alike to a parrot’s but much larger – and round eyes the size of dinner-plates. I saw it quite clearly, and it was very ugly and very real and its tentacles waved at me until I jumped backwards half across the deck. I went and looked over the taffrail again and it had gone. I told the ship’s master, and he called me a liar and a rogue. He was not a bad man, either. I have never met anyone else who has seen such a creature, but I have heard old tales and legends that speak of monsters like that. I saw it, you see, and I know what I saw. Sometimes we sailors see things that are best not spoken of by land. Sometimes we see things that even other sailors will not believe. Now tell me what you saw. I will not mock you, I swear.”
“I saw a ship, Uncle Bill, and she was flying in the sky. At first, by the light of the moon, I only saw something flitting through the clouds, and I thought it strange, and then it passed almost overhead.”
“Um, was this ship the right way up? I have heard of mirages such as are said to occur in the deserts – fata morgana some calls ‘em – but they are oft-times upside down, as they are but a mere reflection, an image made of light.”
“No, Uncle, it was no image. She seemed to be pushing through the clouds, and they swirling around her as water does. She was three-masted. A frigate, I think. Black with a yellowish band along her side. She moved in complete silence, except for a faint sighing noise, honk-wheeze, honk-wheeze, honk-wheeze. I looked with the spy-glass, and she had all her sails furled. I could see men on the deck, all clad in red and grey slops as are worn by the crews of the Dutch company. As she passed I could even see her name writ large in gilded script upon her stern. It said ‘De Fliegende Hollander’. I can spell the letters for you, if you wish, for I am no great hand at the speech of foreigners.”
“’The Flying Dutchman’ … that is … um … best not to speak of this to another soul, my boy, for this is a very strange thing, a very strange thing indeed. Have another glass of rum.”