Greenbeard (9781935259220) (29 page)

Mumblin' Jake came with the refilled coffee-pot and a plate of biscuits, mumbling curses. Blue Peter poured coffee and took a biscuit.

“I am desolated to find that I am not a pirate,” he said, dunking the biscuit and eating it in one mouthful.

“And neither are you a monster, Peter, but if certain parties were to apprehend you they would hang you nonetheless. Now I am diverted from the point I wished to make, which is that I am not a monster, but that my monster-hunt compels me to behave as one. I cannot tell my officers or my crew what I am about, but must instead strut about like a tyrant insisting my orders be obeyed even if they seem not to make much sense, and yet there is no other way. Leave me one biscuit at least, Peter, you greedy sod!”

Blue Peter pushed the plate towards the Captain, but a lurch of the frigate propelled it further and the Captain caught it as it slid off the desk.

“Well caught, sir!” said Blue Peter, clapping. Captain Greybagges ate the biscuit.

“However, Peter, I may vouchsafe you a little of my schemings. Our next port o' call is St John's in Newfoundland. A cold and miserable place, but we shall only water and provision there before heading south to Virginny.”

The mention of Virginia reminded Blue Peter of his thwarted desire to commit arson upon white mansions, which put him in an ill humour. I am tired, he thought, we all are from the hammering of the seas, and the cold, and the need for standing watch after watch. He made his leave to the Captain and retired to his cabin for a couple of hours sleep. The ship seems to enjoy these high Atlantic
seas more than the crew, he thought, as he tied himself into his bunk. I think of her as a wolf at first, then as a leopardess, and now as a seal. There is something very alive, very
animal
, about a good ship, even though a ship is conceived by the mind of man, not God, and made of wood, not flesh. Perhaps she will come to me again as I slumber. But Blue Peter had no hypnogogic visitation, only a dreamless restorative nap, rocked by the frigate's pitching, lullabied by the gentle creaking of its timbers, until woken at midday by the eight bells of the end of the forenoon watch. Dinner was a broth of barley, dried peas and salt-pork, with bread, not hard-tack, as there was still flour this early in their voyage. Blue Peter ate his in the officer's mess-room, which was a little larger after the frigate's rebuild, and now tastefully panelled in light oak. Israel Feet joined him at the table in fine high spirits, drops of spray still glittering in the locks of hair that stuck out from under his head-scarf. The officer's mess-room of the
Ark de Triomphe
was not like that of a ship of the Royal Navy, and pirates on various errands came in and out without ceremony. They seemed in fine spirits, too. I was right, thought Blue Peter, the rough weather and cold high seas have given the crew faith in the vessel, and now they are exhilarated by its romping progress through the waves. He drank some coffee, and wondered if any more cakes had been baked yet.

The
Ark de Triomphe
, sailing due-westerly under topsails alone, slipped slowly into the Hampton Roads from Chesapeake Bay, leaving a white wake on the choppy grey-green water, trailing a small flock of optimistic seagulls.

“Starboard on my mark, mateys,” Bulbous Bill Bucephalus told the steersmen, and, stepping forward, roared “Goin' about to port! Be ready to brace up!” to the foremast-jacks, then to the waisters; “Lead-swingers to the chains! Ready the longboat, you lubbers, har-har!”

The breeze on-shore was light but steady, and the
Ark de Triomphe's
wake curved smoothly from due west to due south as she turned into the wide mouth of the Elizabeth River. The pirate on the port fore-chain started swinging the seven-pound lead weight on its line, at first back and forth, then around like a sling in an
accelerating circle before releasing the coiled line to hurl the hand-lead far ahead of the slow-moving vessel. After a moment the second pirate on the starboard fore-chain started swinging his lead, timing the cast so that the depth-soundings would come alternately as the hand-leads sank to the bottom and were pulled in and cast again.

“Take her past Half Moone Island,” said Captain Greybagges, pointing into the distance, “and then we'll anchor south of Town Point. The harbour-master will be assured of our goodwill when a little gold is pressed into his sweaty palm, I'm sure, and the Half Moone fort will keep us safe from any impudent Dutch privateers who may be sniffing about the coast. They can exchange broadsides with the fort, should they come up-river, whilst we may make wagers on them, sitting comfy, sipping rum and eating hot chestnuts.”

The lead-swingers called; “No bottom!” and; “Six and a half! Six and a half and sand!” and; “Five and some! Five and some and gravel! Brown gravel and shells!” The hand-leads had hollows in their bases filled with tallow, to which the silt would adhere as they thumped onto the river-bottom. As the soundings grew shallower and the bottom more gravelly an anchor was prepared for dropping, swinging free from its cathead, and the longboat was launched to kedge the ship if required. After a normal ration of skinned knuckles, pulled muscles and curse-words the frigate swung in the slow river current, its anchor securely bedded in the gravelly river-floor, and its sails furled into swags on the yards.

The frigate's last port of call, St John's in Newfoundland, had indeed been a cold and miserable place, but they had not tarried there. Two days to replenish water and food, for the Captain to despatch and receive some letters and for a few small repairs to be made, occasioned by the battering of the Atlantic. The widened forward gun-ports which Torvald Coalbiter had suggested had needed to be reinforced, as they now took more of the weight of each wave, and the high seas had shaken the hinge-bolts loose. There had been a great surfeit of fresh fish in St John's, though, and the crew of the
Ark de Triomphe
had gorged themselves on fillets of cod fried in batter for breakfast, dinner and tea. Captain Greybagges had allowed four parties of six to go ashore, each accompanied by a bully-boy to ensure discipline. He felt that this would prevent the remainder of the crew from feeling aggrieved at having to stay aboard, and indeed the shore-parties duly reported back that St John's was a cold dirty slum of a hole of a
place which smelled overpoweringly of whale-oil and rotting fish, that the ale was alike to horse-piddle, that the pies were made of whale-meat and that the only entertainment to be found was a toothless old bugger with a guitar who sang songs in French, although Jake Thackeray said that the song about the gorilla was very funny and that he was going to translate it. The crew were not unduly surprised that Jake spoke French, as he was a very good pastry-cook. Captain Greybagges had impressed upon the shore-parties the need for discretion, and had provided each party with a different yarn to spin to the townspeople about the frigate's destination: they were collecting Mayan princesses from Mexico for the hareem of the Ottoman Sultan in Constantinople; they were on a diplomatic mission for the king of Sweden; they were carrying a letter from the prophet Sabbatti Zevi to the Emperor of Cathay, or perhaps to Prester John; they were going to navigate a nor-westerly passage to the Orient. The
Ark de Triomphe
had departed St John's on a morning tide in a fall of swirling snow, leaving a certain bemusement in her wake, and had sailed east out into the Atlantic. She then curved south and west back towards the north Americas, encountering an iceberg along the way, a magnificent blue-green ice-castle which they had fired upon for target-practice with the new rifled muskets, the guns wonderfully accurate even at three hundred paces. They had seen no other ships until they were close to New Amsterdam, and then only mast-tops on the horizon, glimpsed through the haze. The frigate sailed on south-south-west, occasionally heading south-by-west or southwest-by-south to keep a generous margin of sea-room from the coast, to drop anchor in the river by the town of Norfolk, Virginia, on a calm and sunny forenoon.

“It is indeed a fine day, Captain, but why are we here?” said Blue Peter.

“We are here because I must meet with a Dutchman. A Dutchman who possesses something that may be useful to me,” said Captain Greybagges, snapping his telescope shut after surveying the foreshore and the river. “A Dutchman who is not yet here.”

“How long shall us wait upon him then, Cap'n?” said Bill, standing at the rail eating a large wedge of cold sea-pie.

“I would wish that he were here now, but I may allow him one week, and no more.”

“Should we not then bow-and-stern her with the second anchor, Cap'n? In case the wind blows up, or rain swells the river?”

“Um, yes, if we are to be here for a week then I suppose so, but keep the second anchor nipped and close-by, so we don't lose both of ‘em if she drags, and drop a couple of light kedges, too, to keep her from swinging should the wind veer.”

 

Captain Greybagges, Blue Peter and Mr Benjamin sat at their ease at the table in the Great Cabin. Through the open stern-windows they could hear the splashing, grunting and cursing of the longboat crew.

“Those little anchors, they are called
kedges
, then?” said Mr Benjamin, peering out the stern-windows.

“Indeed, yes,” said the Captain, “to distinguish them from their larger cousins. Some call them ‘fisherman's anchors', because they are pretty much the same as those of a lugger or a herring-buss.”

“A lugger? Would that be a vessel that lugs things about?” said Mr Benjamin.

“Well, yes and no,” said the Captain, grinning. “A lugger may indeed lug a cargo from hither to yon, but that is not the origin of its name.”

“Satisfy my curiosity, Captain, I beg you! I find myself a-thirst for nautical lore these days! Being aboard this grand frigate has enthused my spirits for things maritime, and whetted my desire to be a sailor, or to at least pass for one when quaffing ale in a dockside tavern. What is a lugger, and why is it so-named?”

“That is a question, indeed it is, Frank. A question that requires a full and detailed answer. You mention the quaffing of ale in dockside taverns, too, so let us combine these two activities, and grow our beards a little! I shall need to disguise mine first, of course, so as not to cause tredidation in the local inhabitants … Jake! Jake, you lazy swab! Bring the boot-polish!”

 

The clapboard tavern could not be considered to be on a dockside, but rather faced a beach of stones and river-mud, with boats in various stages of decrepitude hauled up onto it, and fishing-nets hung on poles for repair. The tavern's name was
Wahunsunacock's Mantle
. The inn-sign represented the famous mantle with a wooden board in the shape of a deerskin cloak, the figures of a man and two deer painted upon it, the white paint applied it in a pattern of dots to mimic the tiny shells with which the actual cloak had been embroidered. It was warm in the front parlour of the tavern, with a fire of logs in a brick hearth, and there was a pleasant
aroma of baking bread and roasting coffee-beans.

Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges had visited the harbour-master, finding him in the day-cabin of the harbour pratique-boat drinking tea and eating a meat-pie for his lunch. The harbour-master was a beefy ginger-haired man with sharp grey eyes and a bluff honest countenance, but he was not immune to the power of a clinking handful of Spanish
reales d'or
and the Captain was able to conclude his business with him amiably and expeditiously: The Dutchman whom the Captain sought was not there, but he had left word for the Captain that he would return in ten days hence. The Captain would be kept informed of any undue interest in the
Ark de Triomphe
or its doings. There were no privateers or naval vessels currently in the vicinity, and would the Captain join him in a glass of rum? The Captain would, and a cigar, too, as he had not before smoked one from Virginia. He parted with the harbour-master on excellent terms and joined the others in the tavern, where his conversation with Frank Benjamin had continued almost as though without interruption.

“… so you see, Frank, every lugger has a lug-sail, but not every boat with a lug-sail is a lugger, if you follow me.” Captain Greybagges sipped his hot rum-and-water.

“There are so many variations upon the theme of a large tub with a sail affixed to it,” said Mr Benjamin. “ I now see the wit of that ship-in-a-bottle. The one whose precise classification confused you all so. Perhaps each ship in unique unto itself.”

“Arrrgh!,” spake Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, “it be incontravertibibble that ay craft o' ay sea-goin' nature do have a soul! Begging the pardon of any preachy lubbers who may object themselves upon grounds ‘o blasphemy, it must be clear to any right-thinkin' buccaneer that a ship o' the seas has an immortal soul! Much like a man - an' damn yer eyes iffen it ain't the truth! – a ship has a soul!” Captain Greybagges leaned forward, shut one eye conspiratorily and lowered his voice. “…. although I must confess that my opinion about riverboats remains uncertain!”