Gene Wolfe - Pirate Freedom

Pretty soon it got too dark to work, and everybody except me sat down or lay down, and most of them went to sleep. Finally I decided there were only two of us still awake, the Windward and me. We were on course for Tortuga, the big mainsail was drawing pretty well, and the sea so calm it seemed like it was sleeping, too. I knew that all sorts of things could go wrong. There could be trouble with the men, we could founder in a gale, Capt. Burt might not get to Tortuga for a month, and so forth-more trouble than you could get from ten girls in Port Royal. But the sea was calm, the weather was good, and the boat was alive under my hands. I felt I could count on Lesage, Red Jack, Ben Benson, Big Ned, and Mahu-which made it five to four, even if the rest turned against me. We would go where I said to go, and anybody who did not like it would have a long swim. There was no novice master to worry about, and no feds. Just about everybody on earth was chained up, even if they could not see their chains, but I was not. I could breathe in a way most people never get to breathe. I stayed at the wheel like that for the whole watch, and I cannot tell you how wonderful it was.

The next day, I did it again. It looked like we might be in for a little blow, and I thought that with me at the wheel Lesage's watch would be able to handle the sails without my calling all hands. It was not bad at all. We set the spritsail, the main filled fit to bust, and we sailed along pretty good.

The wind was singing in the rigging, and after a half hour or so it came to me that it was trying to tell me something. That was one of the things- just about the only thing-I had gotten out of music class: listen to the words and notes of hymns and chants and see what they are saying. I shut my eyes for a minute, and it seemed to me I could hear Fr. Luis. No words, but the sound of his voice. I was outside the classroom, and he was lecturing at the blackboard.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw that I was standing in one of the drawings he used to make for geometry. The mast was a line, the mainsail a plane, the boom another line, and the shrouds that braced the mast were lines, too.

And I could change that drawing.

I had been thinking about the Bermuda rig I had seen, and wishing we had that instead, because I felt sure it would be faster. I could not change over the Windward to a Bermuda rig, because I did not have a taller mast to step in her. I could have shortened the boom-we had a saw and a few other tools-but I needed a new mast, and I did not have it. What I understood then was that I could change other things.

During the next watch I made some drawings for myself on a blank page of the logbook. I put letters at the corners, the way we did in class. The backstay ran up from deadeye "A" to "B," the head of the mast, and so forth. I will not give all the rest, but the end of the bowsprit was "I."

After that I got Lesage and Red Jack to look at it, and drew a three-cornered sail set on the forestay just as if it were a mast. One corner was the top of the mast, one was the end of the bowsprit, and one was cleat "J" on the deck that we would have to put there.

"The stay's as stiff as a yard," I said, "because it's so tight. So why couldn't we do that?"

Lesage pointed out that we would have to cut a square piece of sailcloth cattycornered, and half of it would be wasted.

"It won't be wasted," I told him, "it will be a spare J-I-B sail."

Lesage did not think my J-I-B sail would work, but Red Jack wanted to try it. So did I, and I was captain. We did not have a real sailmaker, but it was pretty simple and a couple of hands cut it and sewed the edges in one watch. We put cleats on each side a little forward of the waist, bent our new sail, and it worked so well we almost stopped using the spritsail. THE WEALD WAS already there when we got to Tortuga. Ned and I launched the little jolly boat that was the only boat our sloop had, and he rowed over to her. I told him to wait in the boat for further orders and went aboard. There are things about my life I cannot explain, and one is why I remember certain things clearly when I have forgotten a lot of others. One that I remember very, very clearly from those days is telling Ned I did not think I would be long, turning away, and grabbing the sea ladder. I never set foot on the Windward again-or saw some of her crew again either.

Capt. Burt shook my hand, took me into his cabin, poured me a shot of rum, and asked for my report. I gave him the works-everything that had happened. At the end, I pulled up my shirt, took off my money belt, and counted out his shares of the ship money and the slave money.

He thanked me and slapped my back. "You're a captain now, Chris my lad."

I nodded. "I know it."

"The sort I look hard for and seldom find, eh? I'm glad to have found you. We've had better prizes than the Duquesa since you've been gone. Much better. Add your sloop and your men to what we've got already and we might have a shot at a galleon." He stopped, waiting for me to say something.

I thought hard before I spoke. I knew what I had to say, but it was hard to get out because I wanted to do as little damage as I could. "You told me you liked me once, sir. I like you, too, and I hope anything you try works out. The men I brought are yours, and so is the Windward. But I won't take part."

He had his hand on the butt of his pistol by the time I finished. He never drew it, though, and I've always remembered that about him. All he said was "I knew it was comin', eh? Still, I tried."

He kept me chained in the hold for three days after that. They did not always remember to feed me, but when they did the food was decent. On the third day, the man who brought it told me the captain was going to maroon me, which is what I had been figuring all along.

Where I had been wrong was the size of the island. I had been figuring on a little one, one that might take a day to walk all the way around if I was lucky. This looked like the mainland-mountains rising out of the sea, all covered with the greenest trees in the world. Capt. Burt and I sat in the back of the longboat, so I got a good look before she beached.

We got out, just the captain and me, he unlocked my chains and tossed them to the cox'n, and we walked up the beach a ways. I was barefoot, in a slop-chest shirt and pants to match. He had that blue coat with the brass buttons that he never buttoned, and he was carrying a musket. I thought it was probably because he was afraid I might jump him.

"Know how to use one of these?" He took it off his shoulder.

I said, "I can load and shoot one, but I'm no great shot."

"You will be, Chris. This is yours now." He handed it to me, and the pouch with it.

I stood the musket on its butt and opened the pouch. There was big powder flask, a little flask for priming powder, half a dozen bullets, a bullet mold, flints, and some other stuff, like the wrench you use to tighten the hammer jaws and the little piece of soft leather that lets them get a grip on the flint.

I had been too busy looking at the island to notice that he was wearing my dagger, but he was. He took it off and gave it to me. "This was yours already."

I tried to thank him. I knew he was a murderer and a thief, and those things really bothered me back then, but I tried anyway.

"This is yours, too, eh?" He opened up his shirt and untied the money belt I had bought in Port Royal. "Your share's all there, every farthin'. Count it if you like."

Since there was no point in not trusting him, I did not. I just took off my shirt and put on the belt. I kept that one up until the time the Spanish robbed me.

"This is Hispaniola," he told me. "There are wild cattle here-quite a lot, apparently. Wild Frenchmen, too. Boucaners is how the Frogs say it. They shoot the cattle, dry the beef, and trade it to ships that stop here to buy it." He grinned. "Make first-rate pirates, the buccaneers do. I've a dozen or so, and I'd take another dozen if I got the chance. They'll cross your bow before long if the wind holds."