The Guardship

Chapter 34

THEY WERE feeling their way down the James River under fore and main topsail alone, a blind man with arms outstretched trying to keep to the center of a bridge. In the fore chains, larboard and starboard, experienced hands swung lead lines, their soft chants relayed aft down the length of the deck by the men stationed at the guns.

Marlowe stood by the break of the quarterdeck. He could just see the face of the man below him, calling up, “And a half four, and five, and a half four…” A smoky haze hung over the trees and the river and carried the sharp smell of wanton destruction. It blotted out most of the natural light from the moon and stars, making it that much more difficult for Marlowe to get his ship and men into battle.

He looked to either side. He could not see the distant shores. But he knew that stretch of water well enough to know from the depths alone that they were running down the center of the stream. That and the glow of the burnt and burning houses, standing like lighthouses on the north shore, told him that they were closing with the enemy.

He stared blankly at the flames half a mile away. The Wilkenson home. He considered all the things that he should be feeling-elation, pleasure, the glow of vengeance reaped- and he wondered why he was not. He was too tired, he concluded, too tired of it all, and too frightened of what was to come.

“And three, and three…,” the man below him said.

The water was shoaling, which meant they were nearing Hog Island. Marlowe turned to Rakestraw, who was standing ten feet away. “We shall bear up a bit, pray see to the braces,” and when the first officer had done that he said to the helmsmen, “Bear up, three points.”

The Plymouth Prize turned to larboard, the change, of course, imperceptible save for change in the bearing of the fires on the shore.

“And four and a half, and four and a half…”

Marlowe turned to say something to Bickerstaff, but Bickerstaff was not there. He was off on the Northumberland with King James and a dozen other of the Plymouth Prizes, somewhere ahead in the dark.

They were employing their old tactic, the one that had worked so well on Smith Island. Once the Plymouth Prize was alongside and fully engaged, then those aboard the Northumberland would swarm up the other side and come at them from behind. It was not much of a plan, but any edge was better than none, particularly as they were outnumbered two to one in ships and men, and the men they were facing were very experienced killers indeed, with no reason at all to surrender and every reason to fight to the death.

Marlowe took some comfort from the plan, from the thought that they were not just going right at the pirates but instead were using some of their God-given cunning. He took comfort from the thought that the pirates had been on a rampage for some time now, were probably drunk and collapsed on the deck of the Vengeance, near comatose. He was comforted by the thought that the Plymouth Prizes were drunk as well, not blind drunk but fighting drunk, and he was keeping them that way. He took comfort from the fact that Francis Bickerstaff and King James would be with him on the killing ground.

But for all the comfort that he gleaned from those thoughts, he was not optimistic about their chances. He of all of them knew what they were up against. The Vengeances under LeRois had never been bested in all the time he sailed with them.

Of course, these were not the same men. Most of the men aboard now would have signed the articles after Marlowe had given up the life on the account. But he did not think that they would be any less capable than the others who had sailed under LeRois.

He turned and glanced at the place where Bickerstaff would have been standing had he been aboard. He missed his friend’s steadying presence. They had been through so much together: bloody fights, and lessons in Latin and history, and two years as landed gentlemen. He owed his brief but glorious career as a member of the tidewater gentry, and his brilliant flash of passion with Elizabeth, to his friend and teacher. He would miss him.

And he would miss King James as well, belligerent, surly King James. Marlowe understood the man perfectly, understood what drove him, and he had used that knowledge shamelessly to manipulate James into doing him great service. But he liked James, respected him.

And he had given back to James as much as he had taken. Pride, honor, those things that most of the first men of Virginia did not think a black man capable of having. James, he knew, would not mind dying, as long as he died with a blooded sword in his hand.

But at least he would see them one more time, albeit across a smoke-filled deck as they fought their last in defense of their adopted colony and in defense of their own honor, their own genuine, unvarnished honor. He could not say the same for Elizabeth. He did not think that he would ever see Elizabeth again.

He had found the time to scribble out a will, leaving to her everything that was his-the house, the land, the specie-a brief document that unbeknownst to Elizabeth was included in the packet he had sent back with her and Lucy. It was something.

He thought of her smile, her smooth and perfect skin, the way her long yellow hair had a habit of falling across her face, the way she would whisk it away. He would never see her again, and for that, and that alone, he was truly sorry.

George Wilkenson swallowed hard, made a bold stroke with the paddle. The hulls of the pirate ships seemed to materialize out of the night, the formless dark suddenly coalescing into solid and unyielding shapes not forty feet ahead. From the low vantage of the canoe they seemed to loom overhead, forbidding black cliffs, and rising above the cliffs the dead forest of masts, the spiderwebs of rigging.

George gave another stroke and pulled the paddle from the water, letting the nimble, silent boat glide along. The farther ship was the bigger of the two, and even in the dark night he could see that she was the Wilkenson Brothers. The pirates had altered her in some way-the line of her deck did not look the same-but still George knew the family ship well enough that he could never mistake her for another.

The closer ship, the small one, he did not recognize, and he assumed it was the vessel that had brought the pirates to the Chesapeake Bay. He stared as he drifted closer. He began to see a few dim, square patches along her side, aft, some muted light from within gently illuminating the open gunports.

It was fantastic to be that close to so frightening, mysterious, and alien a world.

Once when he had found himself alone in Norfolk he had ventured into a whorehouse, stayed long enough to have two glasses of ale. He had not managed the courage to indulge in the main attraction of the place, but still it had been thrilling to be in the presence of such debauchery and danger. And this was the same, only many times more.

He dipped the paddle carefully back into the river and gave another stroke, and the canoe surged ahead again. He was still more curious than afraid, which surprised him and pleased

him as well. Of course, he had seen no one moving on either ship, had heard no voices, seen no lights. He was perfectly aware that he might lose all of his courage, might even soil his breeches, if even one voice called out a challenge. But the smaller ship was only fifteen feet away, and he was closing with it, and as yet it seemed that no one had noticed him.

The canoe was still making good way through the water when he came alongside. He put the paddle in the water and with an experienced twist of the blade brought the boat to a stop right against the pirate’s hull.

He hit with just the tiniest of thumps, but it sounded like a thunderclap to Wilkenson. He reached up and grabbed on to the main chains and sat, absolutely silent, waiting for the shouts of alarm, the blasphemous curses of the pirates, the musket shots that would end his life. But there was only quiet, the seamless quiet that he had heard since leaving the shore.

Then he heard a snort, like a wild pig, just a few feet away, and he almost leapt off the thwart. Felt the fear ripple through him. He sat entirely still and listened, and the snort became a more rhythmic breathing, someone snoring on the other side of the bulwark.

He sat for what seemed a very long time, but nothing more happened, so he put his hands flat against the side of the ship and slowly worked the canoe aft. The main channel jutted out over his head like a roof, blocking his view of the ship. And then he was past it and directly under one of the open gunports, the black muzzle of the gun thrust out above him.

He reached up and grabbed the edge of the port and checked the canoe’s sternway. Slowly, silently, taking great pains not to breathe out loud, he stretched his back and craned his neck upward.

He could just see over the port sill, with the top of his head brushing the underside of the gun, and in that awkward position he took his first look at the terrible and forbidden world of the pirates.

The man who was snoring was no more than four feet from Wilkenson’s face. George could smell the stale sweat from

his body, the foul drunken breath that came in puffs with every porcine sound. He toyed with the thought that he could draw one of his pistols and shoot the man right through the head. One second he would be sleeping, the next he would be dead, and he would never know what had killed him. Here was a man over whom he had the power of life or death, a soul that he, George Wilkenson, could send hurtling down to hell.

That thought thrilled him, and he stared at the sleeping pirate for some time before running his eyes over the rest of the ship. The gunport opened onto the waist. He could see a few dim stars overhead, but where he would have expected to see the break of a forecastle there was only empty space. The pirates must have ripped that structure down, for what purpose Wilkenson could not imagine.

He could see a few heaps of stuff lying about the deck. They might have been sleeping men or discarded gear-he could not tell in the dark. In any event, there did not seem to be many men aboard, at least not topside, and those that were there did not seem to be awake. It was no wonder that his approach had gone unchallenged. He settled back down on the thwart and began to work the canoe aft once more.

He came at last to the aftermost gunport, save one. It was that one and its neighbor that he had seen softly outlined by some light aboard the ship. There could well be men within, men who were awake, who would see him. He stopped, gripping the bottom of the port with sweating palms, and let the rush of fear and exhilaration pass.

He sat still for a moment more, feeling the canoe’s gentle motion in the river, and wondered who he was, who he had become, taking such risks for no purpose.

He had tried to court danger before, but the experience in the whorehouse was the closest he had ever come, until now.

Until now. Now that his father had killed off the last of the family’s honor, what little real honor it ever had. Now that his father was dead, and his more beloved younger brother was dead as well. Now that he had been made to participate in the humiliating spectacle of failed vengeance.

The sun would come up in the morning and put an end to that terrible night, and it would find him alive or dead, and he was surprised to find how little he cared which it would be. Any fear he felt now was animal instinct, not a rational desire to preserve his life and position.

With that thought he looped the canoe’s stern painter around the mizzen chains and made it fast. He craned up again and peered through the gunport and found himself looking into a great cabin of sorts. There was a single lantern hanging from a beam amidships. It was entirely shuttered up, but enough light was leaking out to vaguely illuminate the space, and Wilkenson’s eyes, not quite acclimated to the dark, were able to pick out details.

His idea of a great cabin was based on that of the Wilkenson Brothers, with its fine furnishings and appointments, its oak and gilded trim, a luxurious apartment afloat. The cabin he was looking at now might have been that way once-he could see the remnants of paneling in a few places, and other hints of past glory-but for the most part it looked as if it had been sacked and sacked again.

Most of the space was taken up by the four long guns, two starboard and two larboard. The aftermost gunports, crudely hacked through the sides, suggested that those two cannon had been moved in after the pirates had taken the ship.

There was a big table amidships, lashed to ringbolts in the deck. The varnish on the legs glowed in the faint light and bespoke a once-fine piece. Wilkenson could picture an elegant dinner laid out there for the master and his guests. But now there were piles of debris scattered over the top, piled so high that even from his low angle Wilkenson could see clothing and bottles and discarded food.

There was not much else, no carpet, no wine cabinet, no sideboard. Most of the paneling was gone, perhaps ripped down for firewood. It looked more like a cabin for a gang of woodcutters than a refuge for a ship’s master.

There was no one in the cabin, of that he was quite certain, for he could see nearly all of the space. Still, it smelled

as if there were a hundred unwashed bodies there, like the hold of a slave ship. Well, perhaps not that bad, but bad enough. He could smell sweat and rotting food and a vague trace of feces and urine. He was accustomed to the unpleasant smell that ships developed, but he had never experienced anything like that outside a blackbirder.

He had no idea how long he had been staring into that dim cabin, but it seemed a long time, and in that time there had been no more noise than he had heard while paddling out to the ships. Even the snoring had stopped. The night was devoid of human sounds. And in the quiet, clinging to the side of the brigands’ ship, Wilkenson’s thoughts turned to Marlowe.

Marlowe had been one of these men. That was what Ripley had said. He had lived this life, a life that he, George Wilkenson, could only peer at from a canoe. Marauding, looting, raping, Marlowe had done it all. Was it any wonder that Elizabeth was so eager to fuck him? And now he was sailing downriver to fight it out with these pirates, to plunge right into battle with men the very thought of whom made Wilkenson sick with fear.

He had seen the pirates coming up the hill. There were hundreds of them, many more than the Plymouth Prizes, vicious killers all. Two ships against the one. And Marlowe was coming to do combat with them, while all he could do was float alongside in a canoe, peering in the gunport like some kind of peeper. That was all he had ever been, a peeper.

Then the next thing he knew he was standing in the canoe and half thrust through the gunport, squeezing with some difficulty around the barrel of the gun that was run out. He paused as his pistol caught on the sill, twisted around until it was free, and then slid in the rest of the way. He picked up his musket, which he had thrust in before him, and, half crouching, looked around.

He was aboard the pirate ship. That very realization surprised him, as he had never intended to do anything of that kind. He was thrilled at the thought. He was aboard a pirate ship, the only conscious man, as far as he could tell. He held

their lives in his hand. He could kill them all, just as he had killed Ripley.

But that was not entirely true, he reminded himself. He could kill three of them, for he had two pistols and a musket, and then they would kill him.

But he had not come aboard just to look around, he had come to do something, to make himself a part of Marlowe’s world, if even for a moment, even if he was the only one who would ever know it. These were the men who had burned his home, and he wanted vengeance on them, real vengeance, vengeance the way Marlowe would have it. These men had to be eradicated, any suggestion of a link between them and the Wilkenson family had to be wiped out. But he did not know how.

And suddenly the answer was obvious, as obvious as the glowing lantern and the pile of flammable debris and the wooden beams that smelled of linseed oil and tar.

He picked up his musket and stepped softly to the forward end of the cabin. There was a rack for cutlasses against the bulkhead, with two of the weapons still in place. There was also a portrait of a woman, probably the former master’s wife. Her image had suffered great insult in the hands of the pirates. There was a slash across her face and various stains on the canvas where something-food, it looked like-had been hurled at the painting.

George took those things in as he stepped cautiously toward the door that communicated with the waist. He paused just inside the frame. The door opened outward, onto the deck, and it was half open. He leaned forward and slowly, very slowly, peered out.

There was still no movement, though he could tell that the heaps he had seen from the canoe were indeed men, deep in drunken sleep, judging from the many bottles scattered around. He could hear snoring once more. There were not many men aboard, as far as he could tell, though there may have been more below. Still, it occurred to him that most of

the pirates were more likely to be aboard the relatively new and luxurious Wilkenson Brothers than that fetid tub.

He waited for a minute, and then another, and still there was no sound. He felt himself being taken by a recklessness that he had never known. He took another step. He was standing in the doorway, in full sight of anyone who might look up. He reached over and pulled the door shut.

The door swung in, smooth and silent on iron hinges, and then George felt some resistance and the lower hinge gave off a loud squeak that seemed to run through his body like a metal shaft. He froze where he stood, and it was only with some effort that he did not wet himself. His courage was not as great as he had thought.

He remained perfectly still, listening, but there was no sound, no alarm. The door was all but closed, save for two inches. It would have to remain as it was. He stepped back across the cabin and surveyed the detritus on the surface of the table. Clothing, bottles, food scraps. They would burn, as would the table itself and the few bits of upholstery remaining, and the thinner bits of wood making up the window frames.

All of it would burn, and it would set the larger beams ablaze and in no time at all the entire ship would be involved, and then Marlowe would have one, not two, ships to fight. And he, George Wilkenson, would have helped to rid the Chesapeake of the plague that his own father had brought. And then, perhaps, he could endure being himself. George Wilkenson.

He grabbed an armful of the stuff on the table and deposited it on the settee, frowning and turning his head away from the foul odor it gave off once disturbed. He opened his powder horn and spilled its contents onto the cloth. He pulled the lantern down and opened it up and reached gingerly inside for the candle. The flame fluttered, and he paused, waiting for it to regain its strength, and then carried it over to the settee and set the whole thing on fire.

The flame raced through the sprinkling of gunpowder and grabbed on to the cloth, flaring and growing with each second.

It greedily devoured the shirts and breeches and the old coat and then went for the settee cushions. The pirates had already managed to slash the upholstery and pull out a portion of the stuffing, and that just made it easier for the hungry fire. In less than a minute the flames were climbing up the side of the cabin, pulling at the paint and lapping over the heavy beams overhead.

George stepped back from the heat and the light. He was surprised at how quickly the fire was spreading. He stepped back again.

The fire was swirling around the after windows. It snatched up the old torn curtains, and in a flash they were gone and the flames moved on. They crawled across the starboard ceiling and threatened to engulf the aftermost cannon on that side.

Wilkenson began to feel uneasy. He could hear no sounds from the deck, but this fire could not go undetected for long, no matter how drunk the pirates were. He stepped back again and looked toward the gunport through which he had come. His route of escape. He had to go. But he could not tear himself away.

He looked back at the fire, which now consumed a good portion of the after end of the cabin. This was destruction, this was vengeance, from his own hand. He smiled with delight. A few more seconds and he would go, because now he had redeemed himself and now he wanted to live.

He took another step toward his gunport. The heat was almost more than he could bear. The aftermost cannon on the starboard side was now all but engulfed in flame.

Then Wilkenson was struck with the sickening thought that perhaps the gun was loaded.

And no sooner did that thought occur to him than the gun went off with a sound like the ship’s entire magazine exploding. The wheels leapt off the deck as the big cannon flew inboard, blowing more fire from its muzzle. The breech ropes were burned through and there was nothing to stop the gun in its recoil. It crashed through the table and upended as it slammed against its opposite number on the larboard side, turning them both over with the thunder of two tons of iron hitting the deck.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God…,” Wilkenson stammered with rising panic. He whirled around, ready to face the brigands storming through the door, but there were none there, not yet. He did not imagine they were many seconds away. He turned again to his gunport, but the concussion of the cannon had blown the fire down the side of the ship and now his escape route was swallowed by the flames.

He turned again, toward the larboard side. And in that second the first of the pirates pulled the door back and rushed into the burning cabin, his arm flung up to shield his eyes from the flames.

George felt his bladder go. He reached his trembling hand for his musket just as the pirate saw him, framed against the fire. The pirate shouted something and reached for a gun in his sash, but George had his musket up to his shoulder. He cocked the lock and pulled the trigger, and the pirate was blown back against the next of his comrades, coming in behind him.

George flung the musket aside and drew both his pistols. He was surrounded by flames. All of the gunports were involved, and the only way out of the cabin was the door, and he had two shots left.

More pirates were rushing the cabin, guns out, cutlasses flashing. George could see them through the open door. He felt an odd calm sweep over him. He stepped forward as the first brigand charged in, a big, bearded man, his cocked hat askew, and George shot him right in the face.

In the waist the pirates stopped their rush. A pistol was thrust in through the door and it went off with a flash, barely visible in the brilliant flames that surrounded him, and George felt the ball tear through his shoulder. The pain was incredible. He felt his arm go weak. He dropped the spent pistol in his good hand and took up the loaded one from his failing arm.

Another of the pirates pushed into the cabin, and George fired his last shot into the man’s stomach. The pirate pitched

facefirst with a scream, and behind him was a door full of small arms, pistols and muskets, all leveled at him. George let his arm drop to his side and waited for it. This is what a firing squad is like, he thought. This is what it is like to die.

The pirates fired all at once, and George felt himself thrown back, like getting hit with half a dozen fists all at once. He felt the hard deck under him, the burn of flames near his face, but he was not burning himself. He was warm, but he was not burning.

He heard shouting all around him and the crackling of flames, but it all melded together into one smooth noise. He felt something wet and sticky under his hand and realized with some surprise that it was blood, his own blood, running out of him and onto the deck.

I cannot live without blood, he thought, and in that moment he realized that he would not live at all, that he was about to die, and that it was not that bad.

My God, my God, into your hands…

He had stood up to them all, his father, the pirates. He had been as much a man as Marlowe would ever be, and with that thought, and with a thin smile on his lips, George Wilkenson died.