The Blackbirder

Chapter 15

A cannon fired some ways off, a puff of smoke, and a spray of splinters forward. King James looked up. The impact set up a great howling among the men clustered near the bow, shouting and chanting, like hitting a beehive with a stick, but it did not seem to James that anyone was injured.

It was a big Spaniard firing on them, a fat merchantman they had been chasing since sunup. It was not the way James had thought to spend the day.

First light and the lookout aloft had sung out and Madshaka said, “He see a strange sail, right ahead of us.”

James’s first thought was to turn away, to lose whatever ship that was below the horizon, but before he could say anything Madshaka was calling the men of the various tribes aft.

“What are you doing, Madshaka?”

“We vote.”

“Vote? On what?”

“On if we attack that ship or not.”

The men talked. They voted. Ten minutes later they opted for piracy. There was a surprising amount of unanimity in the vote.

James had not seen that coming, not at all. He felt as if he had been punched from behind. There had been talk behind his back, he knew that, and he did not doubt that Madshaka had been doing the talking.

For that matter, there may have been talking right in front of him. And even if he wanted to stop running the ship by vote, his explanation would have to be filtered through Madshaka, and James no longer trusted the grumete enough that he would try.

So pirates they would be, and all that James could do was to fulfill the peoples’ wishes as best he could.

The Spaniard wore around again, presented a new broadside, fired, the iron smashing into the black pirates’ ship.

She was well handled, or at least better handled than her attacker. She had tacked and wore around and fired round after round and skillfully eluded James’s attempts to lay alongside and board her.

James looked down at the men at the tiller, yelled, “Halloa!” They looked up at him and he pointed over the larboard bows and the men pushed the tiller to starboard.

“Madshaka!” James called forward, and when he had the man’s attention he pointed aloft and Madshaka nodded and began to shout out orders for bracing around to the new heading. It was slow and awkward and by the time they were squared away on the new heading the Spaniard would no doubt alter course again, pelt them with another broadside, and gain a cable length or more on them.

James was standing on top of the quarterdeck bulwark. He could feel the warm oiled wood of the caprail under his bare feet, callused though they were. His loose sailor’s trousers slapped at his legs. Around his waist he wore a wide leather belt, his sheath knife in the small of his back, a vicious dagger hanging at his right side.

He was bare-chested, save for his leather jerkin, and two buff leather shoulder belts that made an X on his chest. Two braces of pistols were clipped to the belts. A cutlass hung at his left hip. His head was bound in red damask over which was a cocked hat.

He was a frightening sight, piratical in the extreme. That was the intent. He did not wish to kill anyone if he could avoid it. If the Spaniards could be frightened into surrendering, then they might be able to pull off a bloodless victory.

But it would do no good, in terms of frightening an enemy into surrender, if they could not close.

At first they had tried their ruse de guerre, acting as a ship in distress, the ensign flown upside down, the gun to leeward. The Spaniard had responded by flashing out more sail and bearing away. They had not been fooled.

And so it had devolved into a stern chase and the Africans had closed the distance, slowly, slowly, by virtue of their ship being the faster. But their ship handling, their sail evolutions, were so awkward and slow, thanks to inexperience and language barriers, that they could not capitalize on their speed.

In the bow, their own chaser went off but James did not even look to see where the shot fell. The gun crew had only just been trained. It took them five minutes to load and fire the gun. It was the first time that any of them had actually put their hand on a piece of artillery.

James recalled some story from the white religion like that, where men were trying to build a tower and none could speak the same tongue. He understood now the impossibility of it. The Spaniard had smoked their weakness and forced them into a game of sharp maneuvers rather than a flat-out race. Wear ship, pound them, and then sail away; wear ship, pound them, and sail away.

Tempers were getting short. There had been a fight already between warriors of different tribes. Madshaka had pulled them apart, using his great strength to shove them each to opposite sides of the deck where their fellows could hold them at bay. It was the first time that had happened since they had sailed away from Virginia.

James heard Madshaka sing out the word that he recognized meant “belay!” and the braces were made fast. The bow chaser went off, the ball sent a waterspout aloft, not even close to the Spaniard. It was quiet again, settling into the chase.

It had been a long morning. James could feel the keen edge of his alertness growing dull. His mind began to wander and he let it go. Back, back to the Northumberland and the Chesapeake Bay and the simple pleasure of driving the sloop through blue-green water under flawless skies.

And then a shout forward and the Spaniard was wearing ship, turning her stern through the following wind, turning to bring her broadside to bear. One by one the guns went off, from forward aft, slowly. James guessed that each was being aimed by the gunner personally, who was walking aft from one to the other.

And a good shot he was. A ball smashed into the bow, sending a shudder through the ship. The next hit the fluke of the best bower with a thunderous clank like a bell dropped from a great height. Shrapnel screamed through the air and tore holes through the mainsail.

And just as the men on deck had recovered from the shock of it, breaking into raucous laughter with the ebbing of the sudden terror and pointing at the rents in the sail, just as they began joshing and shoving each other, a ball came straight through the forwardmost gun-port and plowed into a knot of men standing by the foremast fife rail.

It happened so fast that some men were still laughing as those in the way of the ball were torn apart, limbs flung through the air, hot viscera pouring out of rent bodies onto the deck, blood pooling fast, running in streams for the scuppers.

Someone vomited, another screamed. James leapt down, hurried forward, and he and Madshaka met each other at the scene of the carnage.

James paused for a second to look over the damage. Four dead, three wounded, and one of those would not live. And the fife rail was smashed, the lines in a great tangled mess. The pull of the topsail and topgallant sheets on the shattered wood threatened to wrench the last tenacious bits of the rail right out of the deck, and then the chase would be over.

He was more worried about that than he was about the dead men. There was nothing to be done for the dead men.

He grabbed up the severed legs on the deck at his feet and hurled them over the side, yelled, “Madshaka, tell them, clean up this!”

And then one of the Africans was shouting, pointing, waving a finger at James.

“He say, these Kru, his people,” Madshaka translated. “They have death ceremony, don’t throw in sea.”

James shook his head. “Tell him this is a battle. No time for that,” and as Madshaka spoke to the man James grabbed the shattered body of one of the dead men, slick with blood, clothes saturated and still warm. He looked into the dark and lifeless eyes, and then with two steps was at the rail and the body was over the side.

And then the Kru warrior was there, his cutlass in his hand, waving it at James, screaming, and James jerked a pistol from his shoulder belt and held it out, straight-armed.

A ball from the Spaniard struck the side, just aft of them, made them stagger. The man stopped his advance, but his shouting did not diminish.

“Madshaka! What you tell him?”

“I tell him what you say, this a battle, no time for ceremony. He say, ‘Later, don’t throw man in the sea!’ ”

James looked at the furious African over the length of his pistol and wanted nothing more than to squeeze the trigger. No time for damned barbaric ceremonies, not now.

He lowered the gun. Barbaric ceremonies? How had those words ever come to his mind? “Tell him to do what he wants.” He turned to Cato and Good Boy, who were behind him, and said, “Fetch up selvages and handy-billys and let us get these sheets squared away.”

And so it went on through the morning, with the big Spaniard wriggling further and further from their grasp. At noon the women, who had been taking shelter below with the children, poked their heads on deck, and seeing that there was no immediate danger of a fight, prepared dinner on the portable oven.

It was hopeless. James wondered if the others realized as much. He climbed down from the bulwark, stiffly, his joints protesting, and sat on one of the small guns aft.

One of the women brought him a plate of food and he was able to give a smile by way of thanks and then set it down on the deck and did not look at it.

They had to break off the chase. They would never catch this one, and there was always the chance of one of the Spaniard’s shots doing real damage.

But what to say? Giving up was never good for maintaining the aura of command. James was intimately familiar with the pride of the African warrior. It had been his pride, once. He knew that admitting defeat did not sit well with them.

If he could only explain the situation, then they would understand.

But he could not. He could only tell Madshaka and hope that Madshaka was accurately relaying his words.

His dinner grew cold and the turmoil in his mind grew more chaotic and the Spanish merchantman hit them again and again, but each impact was less devastating than the last as each was fired from a further distance.

Then he decided, he would just tell them. In a fight such as this he had the authority to break off the chase if he chose. No voting. That was the pirates’ way.

He stood and sought out Madshaka, and as he did, the lookout aloft cried out and all heads turned to the main topgallant.

A pause, and then Madshaka stepped aft and said, “He say there another ship, behind us, away off.”

James nodded. This would change things, in one way or another. “Keep the ship on this heading. I’m going to go up, look myself.”

He grabbed up his telescope, jumped into the main shrouds, and headed aloft, glad to be leaving the quarterdeck below him and all its problems and considerations. Over the maintop and up, his weapons slapping against him as he climbed. They had a good, solid feel. He liked the weapons. They did just what he wanted them to do. Gunpowder and lead and steel did not dissemble.

At last to the main topmast crosstrees. The lookout greeted him with a smile and a nod and pointed right astern and said something that James of course could not understand.

James put the glass to his eye, pointed it aft. He found the newcomer right off, she was nearly hull up. Against the hazy horizon it would have been tricky for the lookout to spot, and James imagined that he was not looking too carefully in any event, with the excitement going on below and ahead of them.

He looked for a long time at the sails, not speaking, not moving, just looking.

It did change everything, that much was certain.

Now they would not just be letting the Spaniard go, they would be running themselves. How to explain to the pirates below that they were no longer the hunters, that now they were the prey?

How to explain what it meant to their hope of survival that Marlowe had found them at last?

The Elizabeth Galleys had heard the distant sound of great guns not long after first light, and it drew them like carrion birds to the smell of death. Mr. Fleming had had the watch when the first dull thud came soft over the horizon. He had sent down to the great cabin to inform Marlowe and to ask his permission to crack on more sail.

Marlowe had come up on deck to find the men already aloft, already laid out on the yards with hands on gaskets, ready to cast off and let fall.

They had been under easy sail all night because Marlowe did not want to risk sailing right by King James in the dark, though only Marlowe and Bickerstaff knew that. He was not surprised to find the men so eager to spread canvas, but that was some damned cheek, he thought, laying aloft without orders from him, and decided they could wait a moment longer.

“Aloft, there! What do you make of yon ship?”

“Topgallants sometimes, on the rise, sir! Fine on the starboard bow,” the lookout called down, “but there’s not beyond that!”

Only one ship to be seen from that vantage. Could be a man-of-war exercising her guns, but Marlowe did not think so. Not many men-ofwar bothered with such things.

“Very well, Mr. Fleming, let us set all plain sail.”

Fleming stepped forward, called out the orders, the words flying from him like some great pressure had built up behind them. Canvas tumbled from the yards, men leapt to backstays and slid to the deck, sheets were tallied aft and belayed while others ran away with the top-gallant halyards. The men fell to the tasks with a willingness and speed they had not demonstrated in some days.

“What think you of this?” Bickerstaff stood beside Marlowe on the quarterdeck as one after another the studding sails were hauled up and set to draw.

“Two ships in a fight of some sort. A running fight, by the sound. Men-of-war, perhaps, if this European war has reached this far already. Pirates? Privateers? One of those, I should think.”

“In any of those cases,” Bickerstaff observed, “there is not so great a chance of one or the other being a legal prize for us. A man-of-war or another privateer would not care to share their spoils. A pirate might make more trouble than is worth. Do you think these fellows have thought on that?”

Marlowe looked at the men aloft and on deck, the fast, efficient handling of the gear, the high spirits, the absolutely piratical gleam in their eyes, the avarice that shone in their smiles. “No, I do not think they have thought of anything but what they might plunder in the next few hours. Let us hope for the sake of ourselves that there is something for the taking. These men are eager for some reward. I would not put it past them to chuck us both overboard if there is not, like it was our fault.”

With all canvas set and drawing and trimmed with the skill of an eager and expert crew the Elizabeth Galley quickly overhauled the distant ships. It was an hour before noon when they were finally visible from the deck, an amazing feat, given that those ships were also carrying everything aloft that they could. But the Galley was fast, with a clean bottom, and everything about her was calculated for just this thing, running a potential prize to ground.

The men were crowded in the bows, craning their necks over the rail, and even those on watch found some reason to be forward, some work there that needed immediate attention. Marlowe would let no one go aloft who had no real business there. That kind of permissiveness led to chaos. That sort of thing was for pirates, not privateersmen.

Or, in their case, pirates who believed themselves to be privateersmen.

“Mr. Fleming, let us clear for action,” Marlowe said at last. It had to be done and the men needed something to do. “And when that is done let us serve out dinner and an extra tot as well.”

Marlowe shed his coat, took up his telescope, headed aloft. He had to go, though he dreaded what he might see. He felt like a man with a toothache, putting off his trip to the barber-surgeon, not sure what was worse, the pain or the cure.

He settled in the crosstrees and focused the glass forward. The furthest ship was still all but hull down. She was a big one and that meant she had to be a merchantman because a man-of-war that big would not be running from a pursuer.

The nearer one looked to be a merchantman as well. He watched her wear around, trying to dog the heels of the other. An awkward evolution, yards bracing around slowly, unevenly, fore, main, and mizzen not working with any coordination.

Marlowe felt unwell, unwell in the pit of his stomach. He felt a decision looming, one that offered no good choice.

“Mr. Fleming!” he called down. “Pray send one of those Frenchmen up here, one of those fellows we rescued!”

Five minutes later the Frenchman settled beside him. There was still a craziness in his eyes and Marlowe knew it would be with him all his life. The unredeemable shock of seeing things his mind could not endure. He would die a drunken, broken wreck in some port town: Port Royal, Plymouth, Brest. They were all the same. Marlowe had seen it so very often.

He put aside such irrelevant thoughts, handed the man the telescope and pointed to the nearest of the two ships. The Frenchman put the glass to his eye and focused it with a practiced hand.

“Est votre bateau?” Marlowe asked with his modicum of French.

The man was silent for a long time, just looking through the glass. Marlowe could see his hands begin to tremble. “Oui.”

He put the glass down, looked at Marlowe. The two men held each other’s eyes for a moment. Then the Frenchman said again, “Oui,” and without another word he swung himself into the rigging and headed back down to the deck.

Les pirates negres. In an hour, King James would be within long-cannon shot. And beyond him, a merchantman that was no doubt a rich prize, just the thing that the Elizabeth Galleys longed for, indeed, the very thing that they required in exchange for their dubious loyalty.

And Marlowe would have to decide which to attack.