Gene Wolfe - Pirate Freedom

One morning the sun rises over a different sea to light a new sky. The storms are gone. The wind is warm and gentle. The sea is blue, the sky is blue, and the distant land shows blue mountains higher than anyone on board has ever dreamed of, mountains like the walls of giants.

Wet bedding and wet clothes are spread or hung in every conceivable place. A topgallant mast is hoisted and lashed into place, and a Spanish flag run up it. The men off watch have their breakfasts on deck, take their time eating them, make jokes, and sing.

And Novia, lovely delicate Novia with her dark eyes and irresistible smile, hands me a guitar I had almost forgotten I owned. I grin and strike up a lively tune while the whole crew cheers, and soon Pat the Rat has his fiddle. Novia whirls, a skirt I have not seen in months swirling about her flashing legs while her fingers snap like firecrackers-popping like little whips in place of the castanets she does not have.

Red Knife is drumming an empty water butt with two belaying pins. Hoodahs chants, shuffles, and stamps. Big Ned swings Azuka in a wild reel he must have learned in Port Royal, for there is nothing of Africa in it-or else it is all Africa, about which I know nothing. My guitar and O'Leary's fiddle, Red Knife's drum and Novia's dance while the bare feet of fifty of the toughest men who ever pushed a boat into the water smack the planking in fifty hornpipes.

I shout, "Down the middle, Jake!" and Jake touches his forehead without the least alteration of his flying steps. Dear, dear Lord!

Perhaps, someday, in Heaven, you will consent… The Saddle islands lie off the coast of Ecuador. We had scurvy aboard by the time we put in there, and water was short. It is a place remarkable for turtles of great size. We feasted on them, on sea lizards so big they rivaled crocodiles, and on wild turnips and other greens. (There are seals there as well, but we had eaten seal in the Strait and had no stomach for more.) The shores of these blessed islands are nearly as barren as those of any place we saw in the Strait, but the mountains inland are covered with lush green jungle and ring with the sweet music of flowing water everywhere. It is said that two weeks ashore will mend any scurvy, and Capt. Burt was determined to remain for two weeks at least, so as to catch the treasure ships off Callao with a healthy crew in sound ships. I agreed wholeheartedly, and I believe that every other captain felt as I did.

Here I should say that we did not know the precise date the treasure fleet would sail, only that it put out every six weeks or so, and that its sailings were never more than two months apart.

We were seven vessels: Capt. Burt's Weald, my own Sabina, Rombeau's Magdelena, Gosling's Snow Lady, Harker's Princess, Red Jack's Fancy, and Jackson's Rescue. The last two we had taken at Maracaibo, renamed, and refitted at Port Royal. Weald was the largest of the seven, Princess the smallest, and Sabina the fastest in most weathers.

These details are of no great importance. Yet I know that Capt. Burt must have thought long on them, and many others. Now I find my own mind clothed in his blue coat, and plan, consider, and suppose as he must have through many a long hour.

The great matter now was to keep our crews usefully occupied and so out of mischief while our sick regained their strength. We careened the Fancy, scraped and tarred her, and made some small repairs to her hull. We drilled our crews at the sails and practiced turning on the heel and suchlike maneuvers. We drilled at the guns, as may be imagined, and took some target practice, too, though I for one begrudged every pound of powder we spent.

Far better, so far as Novia and I were concerned, we sailed from island to island, sightseeing and exploring. This took some time, required a good deal of ship handling, and was, to us and I believe to most of our crew as well, endlessly fascinating. There are fifteen islands of considerable size in the Saddles, and so many small ones that I never succeeded in charting them all. We saw a turtle that must surely have weighed six hundred pounds, found places so lovely and so lonely that it seemed certain each was the loveliest spot on earth and the most isolated, and discovered a spring that rose in soil so barren that nothing-absolutely nothing-grew around it.

At no time did we glimpse another human being, or even see any trace of one. At no time did we see or find the tracks of any four-legged animal other than the turtles and sea lizards I have mentioned. Hoodahs assured me that there had been goats and wild swine on the island he shared with Master. There was nothing of the kind in the Saddles, though there were many birds.

One night I woke and could not sleep. A list of all the things that worried me that night would make dull reading, and I doubt that I could remember all of them now if I tried. Fretting and afraid that I would wake Novia, I went up on deck. The moon was full, and the warm night so calm no sail could have been of the least use. Boucher was awake and yawning, but every man of his watch slept.

I stood at the gunwale, looked at the moon, and thought how easy it would be-how very easy and delightful-for me to quit the ship and not return. I could return to our cabin and get my musket and bullet bag, and with it a couple of pistols and my dagger. When I returned to the deck, Boucher and I would wake two of the watch and have them row me ashore. I would tell them to return to the ship and walk away. No one would question me or try to stop me.

I felt sure that Capt. Burt would search the island for me, but I had seen enough of the high jungle by then to know that I could evade any number of searchers there. Soon the flotilla would set sail, and I would be alone. Alone in a climate that was too hot only at midday, and never too cold. Alone on an island that would have provided meat, fruits, and greens enough for a hundred men indefinitely. No more fighting and no more storms. No ship and crew to worry about. No more fear of hidden rocks, hanging, and mutiny.

Later Novia told me she had felt the same way the whole time we had been there. If I had ever proposed that we leave the ship and hide, she would have agreed at once. Now I wonder whether Hoodahs's shipwrecked Master ever regretted boarding the vessel that had returned him to England. It seems to me that he must have, and often. Did he ever try to get back, I wonder?

And did he succeed? In the end, we remained among the Saddle Islands for a little over two weeks. Before we left we caught hundreds of turtles of manageable size to take with us. Laid on their back they must stay where they are put, and they can live for weeks (for months, some sailors say) without food and water. They provided us with fresh meat that lasted until-but I must not jump ahead.

We lay ten days off Callao. Princess stayed near enough to shore that no ship could put out from the port without being seen. The rest of our ships were scattered to the north, none so far from the rest that she could not read the signals of some other. When the treasure ships put out-several large ships, strongly armed-Princess would make signal. As they sailed north, they would encounter us one by one, and by the time there were enough of us to alarm them, the passage back would be a long one. That was Capt. Burt's plan, and I still think it was a good one.

Most of the numbers in this account have been guessed at. They are good guesses for the most part-when I said that there were four unmarried men on the Santa Charita, for example. There could have been only three, or there might have been five. But I am fairly sure it was four. These are exact numbers: we had waited ten days off Callao when the treasure ships put out, and there were three of them.

The ten days have stuck in my mind because of the awful suspense of the wait. You cannot stay in one place in a ship unless you are tied to a wharf. If there were no currents and no wind, you might try. But even a toy boat set in the middle of a tub of water will drift to one side of the tub or the other, given time. A ship at anchor is held by its cable, but moves even so, now here, now there. We made a sea anchor, drifted downwind for three or four hours dragging the sea anchor, then took in the sea anchor and tacked slowly back to our original position. We did that so often that all of us, I think, began to hope for a storm. None blew.