Gene Wolfe - Pirate Freedom

When I said that, Simoneau muttered something about not fighting a woman and turned away, and the whole thing blew over.

The funny thing was that the two women got to be friends, but they were always jealous of each other. Men can do the same thing, I know. Sure, they like each other, but there is a certain rivalry. I think Azuka may have made it with some of the guys in the crew, and I know with Jarden, who was pretty good-looking. I also know Novia did not, that I was the only one she ever slept with.

Or anyway, that is what I think.

Sunday afternoons are always slow at the Youth Center, probably because kids who have not touched their homework all weekend are trying to catch up. That was yesterday, and Fr. Phil offered to Phil in for me. (His joke.) That gave me a chance to poke around the library for a few hours. Writing about Novia and Azuka the way I did on Saturday got me to wondering about women pirates, sailors, and so forth. I thought maybe we were the only ones who ever did that, and I wanted to see.

It turns out there were quite a few. Mary Read and Anne Bonney are the famous ones, but there were others. Her captain called Mary Anne Arnold the best sailor on his ship. Grace O'Malley and a mysterious Chinese lady known as Mrs. Cheng were pirate captains, both of them. Some pirate crews had a special rule-NO GIRLS-just like a bunch of little boys playing in a tree house. When I read about it I wanted to say, "Oh, grow up!"

Well, I had two of them, just like Calico Jack Rackam. Back then I thought I knew how Novia had come on board, but I was as curious as anybody would be about Azuka. When I asked whether Lesage had sold her, she said he had and cried. I let a few days pass and tried to find out what happened again, and she cried just like before. So you can say, if you want to, that I never did find out.

In another way, I did. I wanted to know whether Lesage had sold her because he got tired of her or because he had to have the money. But it had to be both. A man who loved a woman would never sell her, no matter how badly he needed the money. And a man who owned a woman and was tired of her would always find out he needed the money sooner or later. Mostly it would be sooner.

Since I have been ordained, I have spent quite a bit of time counseling people. I would say offhand that it has been about forty percent men and boys, sixty percent women and girls. Even if that is not quite right, there have been plenty of both. A man cannot sell his wife, and a wife cannot sell her husband. But I have talked to a good many husbands and wives who would if they could, and cheap. Teenage girls would buy certain boys, too, if they could. And the teenage boys would let them, pretty often for a paper clip and a stick of gum. They do not say that, but when I have talked with them once or twice I know.

The pirate books I found in the library are not as bad as I had expected. They do not tell you what it was really like, but they cannot be blamed for that, since the people who wrote them did not know. I know what it was like for me, and that is why I am writing this. (You have to know to understand why I murdered Michet.)

Things I have seen on TV have not been nearly as good. One thing I have noticed particularly is that the pirate ships look like big navy ships and fight the same way. I never saw a pirate ship as big as a Spanish galleon, and we never opened fire on a Spanish ship unless we had to. Once the cannons open up, ships get trashed in a hurry, and a lot of people get killed. We never wanted the ship we were taking to get smashed up. We wanted to sail it someplace and sell it. Getting our own smashed up would have been ten times worse, especially when it was the Magdelena, which was poison fast once her bottom was clean, and just the right size.

We did not want people killed either-not us and not them. There was always a chance that a Spanish ship would have people we could use on it, a carpenter, a surgeon, or whatever. If they had hidden their money, they could be scared into telling us where, but only if they were still alive.

You take the Rosa, which was the first ship we took. She mounted ten little guns, about four-pounders. We were flying the Spanish flag, and I hailed her in Spanish. When we got close, we ran out our guns and ran up the black flag. I told her to surrender, or we would blow her out of the water.

Which is what we would have done as soon as her gunports opened.

She surrendered, and we grappled her and boarded. I had more than fifty men, and every man had a musket and a cutlass. That was the minimum. Most of them carried the big butcher knives they had used on Hispaniola, too, and some had pistols. I had two pistols, my dagger, and the long Spanish sword. But all that was just for show-I knew I would not have to use them. They had twenty-one counting the captain. What chance would they have had if they had fought us?

I got them all together and told them the truth-we were buccaneers, and their king had treated us like dirt. We could not make an honest living anymore, so we were doing this. Since they had given up without a fight, I would let them take the boats. I would even let them take food and water, if they would tell me where the money was.

They said they did not have any, and there were too many to go in the boats.

I said, "In that case the boats will sink. I don't care because I won't be on them. The rest of you can lighten them by joining us, maybe. Anybody want to apply for a job?"

For a minute it looked like nobody did. Then somebody in back said, "Captain! Captain!"

I thought he was talking to me, but he meant the Spanish captain. He was a black man, average size, who looked like his life had been pretty rough lately. He said, "Me stay ship, Captain? One not in boat."

The Spanish captain said no.

I asked the black man if he was the captain's slave, and when he said yes, I explained that he was free now. We had taken the captain's ship, so everything he had belonged to us. That made him our slave, and we freed him. If he wanted to join us, he could.

The Spanish captain looked like he wanted to kill me, but had sense enough to keep his mouth shut.

"You make joke?"

I shook my head. "You want to be a pirate? Fine!" I slapped his back. "Welcome to our crew." I took one of my pistols out of the sling and handed it to him. "You're a pirate."

He took it and turned. He must have cocked it as he turned, because it was very quick-turn and bang! He shot the Spanish captain, so that was two fewer in the boats.

When the rest of the Spaniards were gone, we held a meeting and decided to sail the prize to Port Royal, sell it, and split the money. I made Jarden prize captain and kept the black man on the Rosa, since he knew how she sailed already. His name was Mzwilili, but I generally thought of him as Willy and sometimes I called him that. A lot of guys look tougher than they are. Willy was tougher than he looked, something you do not see a lot of.

"You sent him away because you were afraid he would take me," Azuka said, and pouted. She was supposed to be helping with a new dress.

I shook my head. "That's between you and him."

"Also the sea. Much sea between us, because of you."

"Okay, I'll send you over in the jolly."

At that, Novia laughed and stabbed the cloth with her needle.

"I will not have you to protect me there, Chris."

"Willy will protect you."

"He is new man." Azuka giggled. "All will be against us."

I sat down and grinned at her. "I can see you're worried sick."

"I am not worried, because you will not send me away. I can make you happy every day. Estrellita will not do that."

Novia said, "There are knives enough on this ship for both of you." She had not looked up from her sewing.