Greenbeard (9781935259220) (21 page)

The three trudged through the mud. It was unpleasant to be abroad, despite their hats, woollen cloaks and greased sea-boots. A Liver bird hovered above them, its cry mournful and strangely nasal; “Awk! Awk! Awk-la!”

The muddy path of Pool Lane skirted the eponymous pool, and eventually led to the hump-backed Towsend bridge over the stream that emptied into it. They looked back from the bridge at the town of Liver Pool, a cluster of buildings dark in the last of the daylight. The bulk of the Old Castle in the midst of the houses, the church standing out by virtue of its square tower, the grey expanse of the Mersey estuary beyond it occasionally visible through the curtains of cold rain.
They carried on over the bridge.

“The fellows in the tavern seemed cheerful and friendly enough, but strangely menacing,” said Mr Benjamin. “I didn't know what to make of them.”

“It is their way, it seems,” said the Captain. “They distrust strangers, and they are surely not unusual in that, yet must deal with them, and so they attempt to appear both amiable and daunting at one and the same time. In a way it suits my purposes, for they are not overly curious, since they themselves do not welcome scrutiny. I hope my words to them, and my small gifts, will reduce the attempts at burglarising. I do not wish to use stronger measures. Come, we are nearly there, and a glass of rum-grog will cheer us.”

Captain Greybagges had purchased a boat-builder's yard on the eastern side of the Liver Pool, away from the town. It had been unused and vacant for several years, almost becoming a ruin, its buildings pillaged by the locals for slate from the roofs and wood. The three squelched down the path at the edge of the Pool in the rain.

In the boatyard there was shelter, warmth and light. Light shining from the windows of the yardmaster's house in the increasing gloom, the gleam of lamps visible from workshops and lean-to sheds. Pirates are sailors nevertheless, and are accustomed to making the best of circumstances, and to the continuous frenzy of repair and cleaning that is life at sea. The residence of the master of the boatyard, empty for years, lacking window-glass, window-frames, doors, floorboards and most of its roof, had stood no chance against the nautical repugnance for disorder, and had been made habitable in two days by a busy fury of pirate work-squads, and made neat and painted in a week, the glossy yellow enamel of the front door a bright gesture of contempt to the unremitting rain. They went gratefully in, but Blue Peter excused himself after gulping a glass of grog and walked around the boatyard on an evening tour of inspection.

A number of wooden huts had been built and the crew had moved ashore. There was light from these huts as the watches were changing. Blue Peter stopped at the huts, talking with the men. A supper of crocks of stew, baskets of bread and jugs of ale was being collected and brought to the huts, each mess going to the kitchen at the house in strict turn, the same as at sea. The men would eat, drink, sing, play at cards and dice, then stow the trestle-tables against the wall and sling their hammocks and sleep the sleep of the just, for the work was unrelenting and hard.

Blue Peter walked on down to the
Ark de Triomphe
. Upon her arrival at the boatyard the frigate had been stripped and emptied as it lay moored at the end of the wooden jetty. The frigate's masts had been unstepped and the guns and ballast unloaded with the aid of a sheer-hulk, a floating contraption of great antiquity. Blue Peter had been surprised by the age of the sheer-hulk; its timbers were a patchwork of scarfings and the overlaps of its clinker planks had been undercut a finger's width by the soft abrasions of flowing water in some long-forgotten past when its hull had actually plowed the seas and not been merely the pontoon for a crane built of old masts and spars. Opinions of the age of the sheer-hulk's hull had varied, but the ship's carpenter had assessed it to be one-and-a-half centuries old at least, maybe two. Blue Peter had found himself strangely impressed by this; who knew that a wooden ship could last that long? The stripped-bare, and much-lightened, hull of the
Ark de Triomphe
had been dragged ashore by the cunning application of rollers and the Spanish windlass and placed on a stollage of wooden baulks in a rectangular pit, where it now sat. The vast labour of digging the pit and dragging the hull ashore into it resembled something, mused Blue Peter, but he couldn't think exactly what. Israelites in the Bible slaving to build pyramids? Did they build pyramids in the Bible? Except that the semi-naked slaves had been slaving in the pouring rain, splattered with freezing brown Mersey mud, not in the hot sun of Egypt on the banks of the sluggish warm Nile. The accomplishment of such a gruelling task had drawn the crew together, though, in a very powerful way. There had been some tensions on the voyage to Liver Pool, the old pirates being short of patience with the apprentice pirates for their lack of seamanship, tending to patronise them by strutting about as they felt men should who had seen bloody actions, while the new pirates had responded in turn by mocking the old pirates for their lack of education and knowledge of things mechanical. The heroic struggle with the hull of the
Ark de Triomphe
had made them work together, work to each other's strengths, so now it was ‘the old pirates' and ‘the new pirates', and not ‘the pirates' and ‘the apprentice-boys'.

Blue Peter continued his walk around the boatyard, checking that the pickets were alert. The locals were very thievish and there had been numerous attempts to steal, some of them worryingly ingenious. The Captain was paying regular bribes to the Lennons and the McCartneys, the main criminal gangs of Liver Pool, to prevent or at least limit pilfering, but the lesser affiliated clans, the Starkeys and the
Harrisons, were probably not receiving their fair share of the protection-money and so felt less constrained. The Best gang, having been completely expelled from the Liver Pool underworld to the wilderness of the Wirral, felt no constraint at all, of course, but were relatively powerless to operate on the other gangs' turf. Blue Peter was determined to prevent a violent incident causing trouble, so vigilance was important, and he was thankful for the tolerant attitude of the pirates to the locals; they were only thieves, after all, and so regarded as a nuisance and not a threat, to be given a clout round the ear when apprehended, not shot, disembowelled with a cutlass or crippled in such a way as might lead to ill-will. There must be some contacts with the locals, of course. These were mostly of a carnal nature, whether procured by payment or by simple affection, and remained a potential source of incidents.

Jack Nastyface joined Blue Peter on his tour of the perimeter, falling silently into step with him, cloaked in a cape of tarpaulin against the foul weather. The young man had become quieter, more introspective, since his friend Jemmy Ducks had left the pirate crew, no longer the giddy youth who had skylarked in the rigging with whoops and catcalls. Blue Peter was sure that if he had not checked the sentries then Jack would have done so unprompted even though he had just finished helping the cook prepare the supper.

“Have you heard from Jemmy at all?” he asked as they approached the house.

“He sent a letter by the tubs,” replied Jack. “He is investing his loot in a brewery in Southall, he says, and in horses and drays for the deliveries. He thinks that the London taverns will gladly forego brewing beer on their own premises as there is then more space for drinkers and more profit to be made. He always did have a clear head for business. He has bought himself a blue broadcloth coat with gold buttons so that he looks more the man of affairs, and he is courting a dressmaker called Edith. He says that she is ‘not entirely pretty, but very jolly', in his own words.”

The ‘tubs' were cargo vessels purchased by the Captain and crewed by retired pirates. They had delivered the sawn timber and other materials for the repairs to the house and to build the huts for the crew, the warehouses for the
Ark de Triomphe's
guns and other contents, the workshops and the walls of the pit where the frigate now sat on its timber cradle. They had delivered other, more mysterious, cargoes, too, and carried letters for the pirates.

“Jemmy will need a hard head for drink as well as a clear head for business if he wants to be a brewer,” said Blue Peter, laughing.

“He has hired a brewer to make the beer,” said Jack. “I think he got the notion of a brewery from wanting to have a stable and to work with heavy horses. With a brewery he always has plenty for his horses to deliver, and no need to deal with lordly merchants and gentlemen of business, who are known to be tight-fisted and slow to pay. A tavern landlord always pays for the beer and for the delivery on the nail. Jemmy likes his ale, it is true, but I don't think he will ever be a sot.”

They stood in the rain for a moment, the raindrops of the downpour glinting golden from the light from the windows of the house. Faint snatches of song and concertina came from the crew-huts, and occasional noises of hammering from the workshops, audible above the hissing of the rain. The boatyard was functioning well to achieve the Captain's plan. But what is that plan? thought Blue Peter. The crew do not ask, they have complete confidence in him. I wish I could feel the same; did he really tell me tales of extramundane creatures on his banyan day, or was that a crazy dream?

Jack Nastyface bid him farewell with a slightly-sad smile and headed around the back of the house to the kitchen, where there would be pots to wash before Jack's own supper. Blue Peter entered the yellow front door of the house, flapping water from his thick woollen boat-cloak.

 

In the parlour Captain Greybagges and Mr Benjamin were eating beef stew, washing it down with ale from tarred leather drinking-jacks. Blue Peter called for some to be brought for him, too, and warmed his behind at the fire, holding the tails of his coat aloft and to the sides so they would not be singed by the crackling blaze of logs.

“As you know,” he said, “I have always wished for the life of an English country squire, and I have imagined myself warming my arse like this before a fire, and thought it would be a fine thing, but now I have to do it from mere necessity I find that dream strangely sad and misinformed.”

Captain Greybagges laughed, Mr Benjamin grinned. A ‘new pirate' came in with a bowl of stew and a jack of ale. Blue Peter sat down at the table, tearing a hunk from a loaf, polishing his silver spoon on a napkin, preparing to savour his supper.

“It is unfortunate that your first experience of England should be in winter, Peter,” said the Captain, “especially as you have seen only London and this godforsaken place. There are more congenial spots. The climate on the south coast is very pleasant in the summer. Why the port of Southampton even has black Englishmen!”

“Is that indeed true?” exclaimed Mr Benjamin. “Are they escaped slaves? Begging your pardon, Peter! I speak from vulgar curiosity alone.” Blue Peter waved his spoon dismissively, his mouth full of the rich stew.

“No, Frank, they are not,” said the Captain. “They are Englishmen born and bred. Many of them are fine seamen, and can boast that their grandsires fought with Drake and Hawkins against the great Spanish armada back in the time of Queen Bess. That gives them a better right to be called English than many of the fine lords and ladies, I think. The people of Southampton agree, for they are an easy-going folk and the sea is in their blood. If you doubt me, merely consider that not only blacks but also Jews and even Dutchmen make their homes in Southampton in perfect tranquillity and prosperity.”

“The Dutch!” exclaimed Mr Benjamin. “Is not England presently at war with the Dutch? The burghers of Southampton must be tolerant indeed!”

“Do you know, I am not sure if England is at war with the Dutch!” said the Captain, grinning. “There have been so many wars with them, and so many peace-treaties, I lose count! The citizens of Southampton are united in their appetite for trade and commerce, and so regard sailors and merchants with great esteem, no matter what their provenance. A war is unfortunate, it's true, but no reason to scupper a fine deal with Myneer van den Plonk, especially as his warehouse is next to the wharf and the Lord Chancellor is far away in the Palace of Westminster. It is an attitude similar to that of pirates in many ways, and laudable to us, if not to the fellows in Parliament. No, I remember now! England is not at war with the Dutch at this time. Perhaps next week, eh?”

“I have much to learn about being a pirate,” Mr Benjamin said. “My mind still tries to apply the laws of logic to the affairs of politics, and to the laws of men, too, which is even more foolish. A pirate has a more pragmatic view, and will not label a man a traitor unless he shall betray his own shipmates or friends. It is perhaps a more human reaction, in the long term. There is a wise fellow, John Locke, who philosophises upon these things, and he suggests that the legal
constitution of a nation should be based upon the desires and aspirations of its humblest citizens, for there are many of them, and not upon the prerogatives of its most wealthy and powerful, for they are few.”

“Um, it is a wonderful notion,” said Captain Greybagges, “but I cannot see the wealthy and powerful being at all enthusiastic for it. They are afraid of the many precisely because they themselves are few.”

“The rich will not take easily to the idea, of course,” said Mr Benjamin, “but the needs of the many are surprisingly modest. Locke says that every man, no matter how humble, should be guaranteed ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'. If these simple rights were adopted as the basis for a nation's laws then the rich could keep their money, which is the only real basis of power, but only for as long as they infringed nobody else's rights. They might also lose their money if they were improvident, but the laws based on universal rights would prevent them from stooping to desperate measures to retain their fortunes. Such a nation might be very vigorous, being based on fairness, and the wealthy might even benefit disproportionately from its prosperity, rather than be murdered in their beds by a howling mob of starving peasants. It is an idea quite close to the democratical nature of a pirate ship, where everyone has their job, knows their worth and is renumerated accordingly, with debate open to everybody.”