The Guardship

Chapter 10

IT TOOK twenty hours, dropping down the James River, then standing east-northeast with an average eight knots of breeze over the starboard quarter for the Plymouth Prize to cover the sixty miles from her former anchorage to Smith Island. They had all sail set, including the little spritsail topsail that set on the spritsail topmast at the far end of the bowsprit. The great lumbering guardship pushed along, seemingly as reluctant as her men to go into battle. But like her men, go she must, and one by one Marlowe pricked the miles off the chart.

In all it was a fine sail. The weather in Virginia, when it is good, is the best in the world. And those two days were good, with the warm breeze making cat’s paws on the blue water of the bay. The sky from horizon to horizon was a fine clear blue, just a little lighter in color than the water.

Off the starboard beam, framed by Cape Charles to the north and Cape Henry to the south, the Atlantic Ocean stretched away, glittering and flashing and melding at last with the pale blue sky on the indeterminate horizon. In their wake was the low green coast of Virginia’s mainland, and forward the long peninsula that ended at Cape Charles. Overhead a variety of birds wheeled around the trucks of the masts, and under their keel the bay rolled with barely perceptible swells.

A good thing, for the Plymouth Prize might well have sunk in anything worse.

One hundred yards off the larboard quarter the Northumberland kept station. It was only with much difficulty that King James was able to sail slowly enough so as not to headreach on the Plymouth Prize.

There is so much to do, Marlowe thought, so very much to do. The Plymouth Prizes were tolerable seamen, but they had grown lethargic and unmotivated under Allair’s command. Nor was their seamanship his immediate concern. More pressing was their training for combat, so that they could acquit themselves well, or at least so that he and Bickerstaff and King James would not die as a result of their incompetence.

“First position,” he heard Bickerstaff call out, and the fifty men drawn up in a line in the waist moved into the first position for sword work: feet at right angles, left hand behind their backs, cutlass held before them. They were as graceful as pelicans waddling on shore, and just as intimidating.

“Second position,” Bickerstaff called, and fifty right feet came forward, ready to lunge or parry. It was all very pretty and nice, and a few years before Marlowe would have thought it a waste of time. Fancy drills had nothing to do with the bloody, desperate hack and slash of a real fight. But he trusted Bickerstaff, and Bickerstaff had convinced him of the importance of learning the fine points first, and then later the grim reality of the thing.

“Extension in three motions,” he called, and fifty men lunged at an imaginary enemy. Two of them stumbled while attempting this, fell to the deck. Marlowe turned and stared out at the blue water and the wooded shoreline far away. The time had come to reconsider his strategy.

It was three hours past sunset when the Plymouth Prize made her ponderous way around the east shore of Smith Island. The moon was almost full, and in that silver light Marlowe had a clear view of the bay and the pirate ship still at anchor. A huge fire was burning on the beach, and sounds of the

distant bacchanal drifted over the water. Everything was as perfect as he dared hope.

They had parted company with the Northumberland at sunset after ferrying over Francis Bickerstaff and a force of ten of the best men the Plymouth Prize had to offer. Lieutenant Middleton, second officer aboard the Plymouth Prize, was sent to take command of the sloop and King James was returned to the guardship. The black man was not happy about that development, Marlowe knew, but there was no choice. He needed King James by his side.

“Sir?” Lieutenant Rakestraw stepped up to Marlowe and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper, glancing over to the leeward side of the quarterdeck where King James stood.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Sir, it’s…ah…about the nigger, sir? King James?”

Marlowe glanced over at the man in question. He looked a dangerous sight, to be sure. A bright red rag was tied around his head, and he wore nothing but a waistcoat, unbuttoned, a loose cotton shirt, and baggy trousers. A cutlass and two braces of pistols were hanging from crossed shoulder belts, pressing the cloth of his shirt down and revealing the powerful chest beneath. His right hand rested on the quarterdeck rail, his left on the hilt of his cutlass. The muscles of his arms rippled with the slightest movement.

“Yes, what of him?”

“Well, sir, is it wise to arm a nigger that way? I mean, to give him guns? I don’t think it’s legal, sir.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Marlowe said. “Why don’t you go take them away from him?”

“Sir?”

“Go disarm the man, Lieutenant. I daren’t.”

“Oh. Well.” Rakestraw apparently did not think it so important, under those conditions, that King James be disarmed.

“See here, Mr. Rakestraw, I know this is irregular, but King James is a vital part of the thing, and I reckon he’ll be a good man to have at our side when the fighting starts.”

“Well, if you say so, sir…” Rakestraw said, and said no more.

Marlowe stepped down off of the quarterdeck and into the waist, where the men were gathered. Each held a musket cradled in his arms and two pistols in his belt and a cutlass dangling from a shoulder strap.

They were a motley and ragged bunch, and Marlowe had no fear that they would be recognized as a man-of-war’s men. Nor was it likely that the pirates would guess the Plymouth Prize was one of His Majesty’s proud vessels. There was nothing more he needed to do to give the ship an appearance of piratical neglect.

“Now listen up, you men,” he said. “I’ve gone over the plan sufficiently, so I won’t bore you with it again. You’ve worked hard, and so I’m going to give you all a cup of rum, by way of thanks.”

This met with a murmur of approval. He dispatched two men to fetch up a breaker while he continued. “This fight could be a hard one, but hear me and take heart. The pirates will be taken quite by surprise. What’s more, I’ll wager they are all drunk as lords and in no condition to resist.”

That was half true. He had no doubt that they were drunk, but he also knew that being drunk would only make them more fearsome in a scrape. Ardent spirits did that, which was the real reason he was giving them to his own men.

“So remember, all of you, stand fast, do your duty, obey orders, and tomorrow you shall be heroes. And rich, to boot.” At that last he saw a few heads turn, a few glances exchanged.

These shortsighted wool-gatherers haven’t considered the prospect of booty, Marlowe thought. But now they would, and it would make them that much more cooperative.

He turned and headed back for the quarterdeck as the breaker of rum made its appearance. His presence would have only dampened the men’s enjoyment of the moment and prevented them from speculating about possible riches.

They rounded the easternmost tip of the island and turned westerly, coming close-hauled with larboard tacks aboard. The wind held steady, and the Plymouth Prize was making three knots at least, heeling just a bit to starboard. The moonlight and the huge fire on the beach glinted off the little waves in the bay, flickering and dancing. The far-off revelry and the crackling of the flames seemed unnaturally loud in a night otherwise silent. The dark silhouette of the anchored ship stood out sharp against the fire and the reflections on the water.

“Stand by to let go the anchor,” Marlowe called forward, and Lieutenant Rakestraw, just visible by the cathead, called back, “Aye!”, leaving out the “sir” as Marlowe had instructed. Things were working out well, the way that he had hoped.

They stood in past the anchored ship. She was indeed a big one, bigger than the Plymouth Prize and more heavily armed, though now she was a flute, her gunports empty and her heavy guns ashore. It would have been no great difficulty to board her and carry her off, but she was not what Marlowe was after. What he wanted was ashore-the pirates and their ill-gotten merchandise.

“Who’s that?” called a voice from the pirate ship, heavy with drink, loud with surprise. The fellow left aboard to keep watch, no doubt, Marlowe thought, and a fine watch he is keeping. The Plymouth Prize was already alongside and no more than fifty yards away before he spotted her. “What ship is that?” the watchman added.

“Vengeance,” shouted Marlowe.

“And where do you hail from?”

“Out of the sea!” It was the usual pirate response to that question, defiant, mocking all seagoing etiquette and protocol.

There followed a brief silence, and then: “What do you want?”

“I’ll tell you, but it’s no business of yours. We need a harbor, we’re leaking like an unstanched wench. D’ya not hear our pumps going?”

There came a grunt by way of reply. “Very well, then, but keep your goddamned distance, hear me? And if you’d beach her, then just stand on, there be a bar of but one fathom deep just ahead.”

Marlowe heard his words but gave them no thought. The watchman had not raised an alarm. His mind was now occupied with the beach. If they stood in another cable length or so, he figured, then they could land in the dark. Those pirates encircling the inferno would be blinded by their own fire and silhouetted against the flames. Yes, it would be a handsome thing.

And then he thought of what the watchman had said. He turned to King James.

“Did that villain say ‘If we’d beach her…’” he began, but got no further. The Plymouth Prize lurched to a stop. Marlowe staggered forward, thrown off balance. The grinding sound of her bow running up on the sandbar was carried back through the fabric of the ship.

“Son of a bitch,” he said out loud. They were hard aground. The ship began to swing, pivoting on her bow as the stern was blown downwind. Overhead he heard the flap of canvas as the sails luffed, and then they fell silent as they came aback.

Just as Marlowe was assuring himself that there was no harm done-they were only on sand-he heard a creaking, a horrible creaking and snapping of wood, a groan of cordage and the sharp pop pop pop of ropes coming under great strain.

He looked up. The mainmast was leaning to starboard and aft. He could see the wood coming apart, actually see it splintering, where the mast had rotted at the base. The sails were full aback and pushing the whole thing over the side.

“Clew up the topsails! Clew up the mainsail!” he shouted. “Just cut the damned sheets away! Just cut them away!” What he hoped to accomplish he did not know, nor did it matter. The men just stood there, staring dumbly aloft, as if his orders were directed at some other crew.

The mast leaned farther and farther. One shroud, then another and another, snapped and flew across the deck as the mast went by the board. The mainstay was stretched taut as a harp string and groaned under the load. He could hear the

fibers popping as that rotten rope tried to hold the entire weight of the mast.

“You there, in the waist,” he called to a knot of men standing just beneath the stay, “stand clear…”

Then the mainstay lanyards parted and the heart, a great block of oak made fast to the end of the mainstay, whipped through the gang in the waist. One man turned at the sound and caught the block full in the face. It carried him along as it knocked the others about the deck, like a cannonball blasting them apart.

Vigilance, vigilance, and no standing about, Marlowe thought, taking some small satisfaction in seeing the sluggards pay thus for their somnambulism.

The mast hesitated, as if making one last effort to remain upright, then toppled over the side. Mainmast, main top, main topmast, main topgallant, flagstaff, fore topgallant and flagstaff, and half a ton of rigging all collapsed into the harbor.

“Drop the damn anchor,” he called forward, heard the anchor splash down.

He looked over the water toward the beach. A hundred of the pirate revelers were standing in the surf, watching the fun as the Prize’s mast collapsed. That was the last thing that the mast had taken with it-their chance at surprise.

He stepped down into the waist, spoke in a sharp whisper. “Get those boats alongside. Load your weapons, and remember, I’ll flog the man to death who fires before I give the word.”

“We’re still going ashore?” someone croaked.

“Yes. And I’ll flog to death the next man who questions my orders.” And by God he meant it, too.

The two big boats were pulled alongside, and one by one the men clambered down the boarding steps and took their places at the thwarts, their muskets laid down amidships. Marlowe stood at the gangway, looking down. White, expectant faces looking back at him. He had intended to land the men at the dark end of the beach, but now that was out of the question. The pirates would think such a move was an attempt to flank them, which indeed it was.

“Oh, to hell with it,” he said out loud. If the villains on shore thought the Prizes to be fellow Brethren of the Coast then they wouldn’t be surprised to see the men come ashore heavily armed. It was what that type did.

“Listen up, you men,” he said in a loud whisper. “We’re going right at them. When we beach, just pull the boats up and step ashore, easy as you please. Keep your mouths shut, only I talk. Then, when I give the word, jump into formation and prepare to fire a volley. Is that clear?”

He heard murmured acknowledgment floating up from the boats, but he felt no great confidence that his orders had been understood, or if they had, that they wold be obeyed. Well, he thought, there’s nothing for it now.

He climbed down into the first boat and sat himself in the stern sheets, and without a word King James followed, taking up the tiller. The former slave seemed oblivious to the dirty looks shot aft by the Plymouth Prizes, who apparently did not fancy the idea of a black man as coxswain.

But what they did not understand, as Marlowe did, was that it was the perfect touch for their disguise. Nowhere outside that rude democracy of the pirate world would one find a black man on such an equal footing with whites.

Lieutenant Rakestraw, dressed much like his men and looking in no way like a British naval officer, took command of the second boat, and with a word the oars came down and the boat crews pulled for shore.

In the moonlight Marlowe could see the faces of the men at the oars. They were tight lipped and grim, and their skin appeared pale and waxy. Beads of sweat stood out on foreheads, more so than was warranted by the temperature or the exertion.

They were a very frightened bunch. Marlowe caught a whiff of something that suggested someone had not been able to hold his bowels, but that smell could well have come from another source. At least their backs were to the beach, and the waiting pirates would not see the terror in their faces, only the calm visages of himself and King James.

They closed with the beach, one hundred yards, fifty yards.

He could see the pirates massed there, waiting for their arrival. There were over a hundred of them, and not above forty Prizes. That would also help the pirates feel secure, though it did nothing for Marlowe. He thought of what he would say, how he would hold their attention while his men formed up.

He could smell the fire now, and the roasted pig and the rum and the discharged powder, all those familiar smells of a pirate encampment. The boats ground up on the sand, and the men of the Plymouth Prize, the stupid sheep, just sat there, oars dangling in the water.

“Get out and pull us up on the beach,” he growled, and reluctantly the men left the familiar boat and stepped ashore at the feet of their enemy.

Marlowe stood and swaggered forward to the bow of the boat and hopped down onto the sand with King James a few feet behind.

“Who the fuck are you, then?” asked one of the crowd. They were twenty feet away, pushing forward to get a look at the newcomers, and they looked every inch the pirate mob. Most wore no shoes or stockings. Some wore breeches, but most wore the baggy trousers favored by sailors the world over. At least half of them wore sashes around their waists, red, generally, into which were thrust pistols and cutlasses. Others wore pistols hung around their neck on slings of bright-colored ribbon.

Some had long coats and cocked hats, much like Marlowe’s, and others had bright-colored rags tied about their heads. All wore beards of some description, and their hair was long and generally unkept. The smell of rum could not have been stronger had there been a distillery right on the beach. They were a murderous, ugly bunch.

“My name is Sam Blaine,” Marlowe announced, “which ain’t of no importance. But hear me. The guardship here has a new captain, and he ain’t afraid to fight. You seen my mainmast go by the board? I was in a scrape with him yesterday, fought it out for three hours before I could draw off, the bastard. He done for my mast. Goddamned miracle it stood this

long. And he’s bound for this place, to the devil with his black soul.”

This news gave some pause to the crowd of brigands, enough that Marlowe could glance over his shoulder at his own men. The second boat had pulled up. Rakestraw hopped ashore and stepped cross the sand to Marlowe’s side. All but a few of the Prizes were now on the beach, and most were reaching for their muskets. That would not go unnoticed.

He looked back at the pirates. There was not a man among them who was not armed. Cutlasses were much in evidence, though only a few were drawn, and pistols as well, though with any luck none were loaded.

“Here, what’s the meaning with all them firelocks?” another of the pirates asked. Marlowe heard a murmur running through the gang, and a few more cutlasses were drawn. He heard the lock of a pistol snap into place.

A minute more, he needed but a minute more for his men to be in place and then he could demand their surrender. “Listen to me,” he said, “I just finished telling ye-”

Then one of the Plymouth Prizes broke, succumbed to his terror, unable to endure the tension of standing face-to-face with this fearsome enemy. He screamed “Bloody whoreson bastards!” and a gun went off like a cannon right in Marlowe’s ear. He felt the rush of air, heard the frightful whine as the ball passed by and struck the pirate just in front of him in the throat, tossing him back into the sand.

“God damn it!” He whirled around and shoved James down in the sand, no easy task, and fell on top of him as his panic-crazed men raised their muskets and blasted the pirates with a wall of lead. He felt bits of flaming wadding land on his hands and face and burn like stinging insects, heard men scream in terror and agony. The Prizes could not miss; they were firing from fifteen feet away into a solid crowd of men.

Marlowe scampered over James and crawled on hands and knees out of the way. He could hear more screams and curses, and gunfire being returned.

At last he leapt to his feet, Rakestraw beside him and James scrambling behind. Fifteen or so pirates lay thrashing on the sand and the other eighty were shouting, drawing weapons, charging at his men.

His men, in turn, had thrown their muskets away, as they had been instructed, but rather than drawing their pistols and firing again-the second part of Marlowe’s plan-they turned their backs and rushed into the surf, ignoring even the boats in their panicked flight.

Marlowe pulled his sword with his right hand and a pistol with his left and shot down the pirate leading the rush on the Prizes, then charged into the surf after his own fleeing crew.

“Your pistols! Your pistols! Turn and fire!” he shouted. He reached the man leading the retreat, up to his knees in the water and running hard with high, exaggerated steps. Where he thought he was going Marlowe could not imagine. He smacked the man hard with the flat of his sword.

One pirate fired, then another and another, and the Prizes began to fall. “Turn and fire!” he shouted again, and this time he was joined by Rakestraw, who had also hurled himself into the mass of fleeing men. It was Marlowe’s plan to kill as many of the villains as they could with musket and pistol. He never had a hope of his men standing up to the pirates in swordplay, fighting hand to hand.

They were all in the surf now, and the pirates were on top of the rearmost of Marlowe’s men and hacking them to pieces. He could smell the blood, like warm copper. That smell and the screams of men dying badly were all ghosts from a past he thought he had left behind.

He pulled another of his pistols, fired it into the face of one of the pirates, threw it aside, and pulled another. Rakestraw and King James had disposed of all their pistols and left five dead men at their feet, and now they were standing in front of the onrushing pirates, cutting them down as they came.

Marlowe fired his last pistol and missed, and the man beside him pulled his gun and fired as well, then one after another of the Prizes turned and fired and the onrush of pirates faltered. Marlowe saw pistols whip through the air as they were

thrown at the attackers and men reached for their second guns. The spirit of resistance seemed to sweep over his men as fast as had the panic, and now they stood fast in the surf and fired.

Holes appeared in the rush of attackers as the brigands died where they stood. One took a step back, then another, and soon they were all backing away from the Prizes, but they did not break and run, and Marlowe knew they would not. These men were no strangers to this kind of fight and this kind of carnage. There was no grief for lost comrades, and each of them knew that surrender meant hanging.

“At them, men!” he shouted, waving his sword over his head, and thirty cutlasses were drawn and the Plymouth Prizes screamed and charged.

They did not get far. The pirates might not stand up to gunfire with no weapons of their own loaded, but now the Prizes’ guns were spent and it was steel on steel, and in that contest the pirates would not be bested. The rogue horde screamed as well and fell on the man-of-war’s men as the two bands came together in a crash of blades.

Marlowe charged through the press of Plymouth Prizes. Before him was a monster of a brigand, as big as a bear, a long black beard, matted hair, blood smeared on his face. And between them was one of Marlowe’s own men, trying to fend off the pirate’s flashing blade.

Marlowe put a hand on his man’s shoulder, tried to push him aside, when the pirate’s sword erupted through his back, skewering the man and pushing through so far as to prick Marlowe in the chest. Marlowe met the pirate’s eyes and the villain smiled at him, actually smiled, while Marlowe’s man shrieked and puked blood, squirming on the sword.

Marlowe smiled as well and drew his sword back. The pirate screamed a curse and struggled to free his weapon from the dying man, but he could not. Marlowe drove his sword right through the pirate’s face, just below his left eye, and pulled it free as the pirate fell, still screaming, now in rage and pain, into the shallow water.

He pushed the pirate’s victim aside-if he was not dead, then he soon would be-and met a blade coming down on him, turned it aside, and thrust. He looked around. He was all but alone, save for King James, slashing and hacking by his side.

The black man’s face was set in an expression of utter fury, and he screamed out words that Marlowe could not understand. His teeth flashing and his skin glowing under a sheen of sweat as he worked his blade back and forth, cutting, stabbing, parrying, striking down all comers.

But they were surrounded by the pirates, and his own men were once again inching back into the surf.

“To me!” he shouted, but he did not think they heard him over the chilling shrieks of the pirates, and even if they did he did not think they would have obeyed. Two days of drill could not give those men the mettle to stand and fight skilled and desperate killers.

He slapped James on the shoulder to make certain he noticed, then took a step back, and then another. To his right Rakestraw was fully engaged, but on seeing his new captain step back the lieutenant did likewise.

They were outnumbered and nearly surrounded, and no doubt soon would die. He slashed right to parry a cutlass, but not fast enough. The blade cut through his sleeve and rent his flesh. He felt the warm blood running down his arm and knew from past experience that he would not feel the pain until later, if he lived that long. How had he let himself be trapped thus, with no means of escape?

He had not. Of course he had not. In the very instant he remembered, he was greeted with a volley of gunfire, the sweetest sound he ever heard. It came from behind the wall of pirates, flashing in the night and lighting them up from behind.

In the few seconds of light from the muzzle flashes he saw bloody, hideous faces, cutlasses dripping gore, bodies floating in the surf, and ten of the pirates fell, dropped by the careful aim of Bickerstaff’s men.

Bickerstaff. Marlowe had forgotten, completely forgotten about him, though all along he was the only hope they really

had of victory. He had made it across the island, had come up behind the enemy. Just in time.

The pirates half turned, not willing to show their backs to Marlowe’s men but frightened by this attack from behind. As well they might be.

Bickerstaff’s small band fired again, pistols this time, then flung themselves at the startled brigands, hacking with their cutlasses, Bickerstaff himself at their head. It was a horrible sight, horrible at least for the pirates who fell under their blades.

“To me!” Marlowe shouted to the men at his back, some of whom were already waist deep in the water, and with a cry they charged as well.

And that was too much for the pirates. With many a curse and a damning of the victors’ black souls, they flung their weapons in the water and threw their hands over their head. Marlowe had seen it before, the moment when a halter around the neck sometime in the future became a better option than the certainty of a sword thrust in the next few seconds.

They stood there for a moment, King’s men and pirates, listening to the moans and screams of the wounded, the heavy breathing of frightened and exhausted men, the lap of water around their ankles.

Marlowe looked up at Bickerstaff, standing on the other side of the gang of prisoners. He looked as calm as he ever did. Beside him, breathing hard, the point of his sword resting in the sand, was Lieutenant Middleton. The light from the distant fire illuminated half of his face and glinted off of the blood on his sword blade.

“Bickerstaff,” he said at last, “how very glad I am to see you.”