Gene Wolfe - Pirate Freedom

Here is what you have to do. First you notice how much the ship is rolling or pitching-most of the time. (Every so often a big one will fool you.) Then you aim the gun. The best aim is to have the base of the enemy's mast in your sights at the top of the roll or pitch. You jump out of the way and grab the slow match. You stick the burning end in the touchhole, timing it so the muzzle will be as high as it is going to go when the gun fires. It will take a quarter of a second or so for your gun to fire after you touch it off.

There is a lot of luck involved. There is also a lot of skill, particularly in knowing the roll or pitch and knowing just how long it will be before the gun fires. A pretty bad shot may get lucky. It is bound to happen now and then. But in the long run, a good shot will beat a bad one hands down.

What I did was to say a Hail Mary, starting at the bottom of a roll or pitch, and notice where the top came, then touch off the gun one word before that. I do not know what Novia did. I only know it worked for her.

The last time I had seen Tortuga I had been paddling a piragua. Now I was captain of the most beautiful pirate ship anybody ever saw, and I had another one, bigger and good-looking too, with her captain under me. It made a lot of difference-the skipper of the Castillo Blanco was a heck of a lot more worried than the guy paddling the piragua had been, and had a heck of a lot more things to worry about.

"That's Turtle Island," I told Novia. "See the shape?"

She nodded, still studying it through my glass, then looked up at the gold-and-white French flag we were flying. "They will not shoot at us?"

"Good on you," I said, "you spotted the batteries. So did I. We won't come in range. Rombeau and I are going ashore in Magdelena's gig."

"You are no more French than me, Crisoforo. Send Bouton."

I told her I could pass, and I wanted to see those batteries for myself.

When Melind and I had left Tortuga, there had been no shore batteries and the town had been shot up by the Spanish. The town was back now, still shacks mostly but with wider and straighter streets, and not all shacks.

The shore battery Rombeau and I went to had five long guns, probably twenty-pounders, with a furnace for heating shot. There was a stockade to protect the gun crew. We saluted the officer in charge and told him we were law-abiding traders who just wanted to go into the harbor to do a little business.

He winked and asked if we were selling cannon-he noticed we had quite a few gunports. I explained that we had them to fight off the accursed Spanish and said I felt sure there was a small fee to be paid by each ship going into the harbor. We would be glad to pay it. How much? After that we talked about money for a while, Rombeau and I finally getting him down close to half.

We had no sooner tied up at a wharf than a soldier came with a letter saying the governor of the island wanted to parlay with both captains that afternoon.

M. Bertrand d'Ogeron was one of the biggest men I have ever seen. He was fat, sure, but he was tall, too, and there was lots of muscle under the fat. The funny thing about him was that he looked stupid, with his big, wide, fat face and little nose and mouth. Then too, he had a trick of opening his eyes wide that made him look like a real idiot. About the third time he did it, I caught on. He was hoping we would say something stupid he could use if we stuck to our story about being honest merchants. As for him, he was about as dumb as the weather glass.

"You have wine, yes? Good wine from France? I would like a lot."

No, we said, we did not have any.

"A pity, Monsieurs. Oh, a great pity! One cannot get good wine here. Rum. Rum is not wine." He looked like he was about to cry, and shook his head.

We agreed and said we just wanted to buy supplies, and maybe sign up a few sailors who needed work.

"No wine?"

"None." We shook our heads, both of us.

"At home, my mother-oh, my poor mother!-would set before me the best food in Provence, and the best wine." He sighed hard enough to fill the mainsail. "They say she is dead. This I do not believe. My poor mother, my poor, old mother. Dead. She? It cannot be! Think you she is dead, Monsieurs?"

We said it seemed pretty unlikely and brought up the sailors again.

"Honest sailors, Monsieurs? You neglected to say honest sailors." Here he gave us the idiot stare. "You neglected to say it, but you would not want men who would filch your goods. No, no!"

I said, "We need men so badly we'd take any kind, Your Excellency."

"Pirates? You would not accept pirates, surely?"

"They may wish to reform, Your Excellency. We need men very badly." I shrugged. "You comprehend, I'm sure."

"French pirates." He nodded and looked pleased. "Good honest Frenchmen, such as we ourselves are."

Rombeau said, "Any kind. I'd soon teach them how to talk."

I added, "We need them badly, you see."

"Again?" He cupped his ear. "Say it again? I did not understand you."

I repeated what I had said.

"Well, well. It is simple enough, isn't it? You need men. I have it now. Need men. And supplies? Food? Rum? Sailcloth? Rope?"

We nodded.

"I see." He picked up a beautiful china inkstand and stared at it as if he had never seen it before. "Why, look there! It has a tower with a lot of roofs. More roofs all the time!" The quill fell out, and he bent to pick it up, grunting. I thought sure he would spill the ink, but he did not.

He straightened up and put the quill behind his ear. "Monsieurs, I have sad, sad news for you." He gave us the idiot stare. "Are you bound for China? There are fortunes made in the China trade every year."

We said no.

"Silk for the ladies. Tea? Scores of other things. You must go! But there are no honest sailors here-none! I myself have never visited China. Never been there! I am but a poor man, a man exiled from his homeland and his poor old mother, Monsieurs."

I said, "We're poor men, too, Your Excellency. Poorer than you are, I'm sure."

"English sailors? You would not want English sailors, I know. They are pigs, those English."

"Any kind, Your Excellency. We would soon teach them French, as Captain Rombeau says."

M. d'Ogeron shook his head. "They cannot be trusted. You are French, Monsieur?"

I said I was.

"Odd. Odd? Well, well, well! Each time you speak-well, it doesn't matter, does it?" He stared, nodding to himself. "Are we not all children of Adam, Monsieurs? I know I am. My poor mother often explained it. I myself, Monsieurs, am the partner of an English merchant." He nodded again, took the quill from behind his ear, stared accusingly at it as though it had tickled him, and dropped it on the floor.

I said, "I hope your partnership profits you, Your Excellency."

He sighed. If the quill had been on his desk, I think he would have blown it off. "It is not my ship, Monsieur. Only my partner's, and he cheats me. Cheats me abominably! And yet… And yet he brings me a little gold from time to time."

I said, "That's good."

"It is, Monsieur. Perhaps you know him, being English yourself?"

"No doubt I might know him, Your Excellency, if I were English."

"Captain…" He stared at me again, staring for so long it was hard not to say anything. "Burt? My partner and dear friend Captain Burt?"

I smiled. "Why, yes, Your Excellency. As it happens I have the honor of knowing a Captain Burt. An honest man and a good sailor, just like me."

"I see." D'Ogeron scratched his head. "I am forever dropping things, Monsieur. My, um, crayon. That feather thing. You are not troubled in that way, Monsieur?"

"I am," I said. "Why, I dropped two pistols only this morning." A pistole is a Spanish gold coin, and I figured he would know it.