Kage Baker - Dark Mondays

He discovered that there was a deal of a lot of clerking to do, which might surprise those thinking a pirate’s life is all carouse. There were terms and articles, there were ships and their captains to be commissioned, there were shares to be reckoned and set aside for the King and the Duke of York. All of it so much inky nothing, as the fleet hadn’t taken in a penny yet. John climbed into his hammock at night with stained fingers, and heard shuffling paper in all his dreams.

All the while, the steady desertion bled from Bradley’s ship. It wouldn’t do; Bradley wasn’t much of a man for taking prizes, but he was Morgan’s friend, and so Morgan put the order out that berths on the Mayflower would be filled before they sailed.

“They must have scoured the bilges for ’this lot,” muttered Felham. John, seated beside him at the plank table, felt inclined to agree. He cast a dubious eye over the stragglers lined up before them, and sneaked a glance at Captain Bradley, to see what he thought of it all. Bradley was looking pretty bleak.

“Step up, you lot,” said John. “Who’s for a berth on the Mayflower , and riches?”

Someone far back in the line cackled with laughter. There were cripples, and dazed-looking men far gone in drink, and thin, sickly fellows, and one or two clear lunatics. “Read them in, for the love of God,” said Captain Bradley, and stalked off to the wood’s edge to sit in the shade.

“Name?” John inquired of the first to step up. He tilted his head back to see a tall man in shabby black, skeletally gaunt, white-faced, looking down at him. The man gave what must have been intended as a friendly smile. On a wolf, it would have been.

“His name is the Reverend Mr. Elias Hackbrace,” piped a sharp voice, nothing like what John would have expected to come out of that narrow chest, and that was because it hadn’t. A small man stepped around Reverend Hackbrace. He was a pale, mouselike individual, but his glare was flinty.

“Reverend, is it, now?” John looked from one to the other. “Why, sir, with all respect, we ain’t likely to need sermons.”

“We are perfectly aware of that,” said the little man. “It is our intention to pursue the vicious Spaniard, to the greater glory of the Almighty God, trusting in His monetary recompense by way of spoils of victory.”

John and Felham looked at each other. John rubbed his chin.

“To be sure,” said John. “But this is likely to be dirty work, see. I wonder whether the Reverend mightn’t feel a bit faint about killing a man?”

“I assure you, sir, that is not the case,” said the other. “Mr. Hackbrace has a quite ungovernable temper when it is aroused.”

“I have broken the Sixth Commandment on several occasions,” said the Reverend Mr. Hackbrace, in a rusty-sounding voice.

John counted off the commandments on his fingers, and his eyes widened. “Murder?” he said.

“Only Papists,” said Reverend Hackbrace. His hands twitched.

“No worse than what any soldier would do, sir, in defense of his country,” said the little man. “Or, in this case, the true faith.”

“Well, see, some of our mates here is Frenchmen, and they’re Papists too,” said Felham. “If he’s going to go killing just any Papists when his temper’s up, that won’t answer, will it?”

“Oh, no; but the dear Reverend has discovered an unfailing means to check his wrath,” said the little man. “Allow us to demonstrate.”

He pointed to a young palm tree that grew some ten yards away.

“Mr. Hackbrace, regard that tree. Think of it as a sinful tree, Mr. Hackbrace! It is the very lair of the Old Serpent! It is the throne of the Woman Dressed in Purple and Scarlet, Mr. Hackbrace! It is the Pope’s own tree, Mr. Hackbrace!”

The Reverend Mr. Hackbrace obediently regarded the tree, and the tremor in his hands grew markedly worse. He developed a facial tic. A thin flow of spittle started from the left corner of his mouth. His eyes reddened with an indescribable light; his head jerked back, as though he were about to fall in convulsions. Instead he hurled himself screaming at the palm tree.

Such was the force of his assault that the tree snapped clean off at its base, and he rolled with it in the sand, screaming still, stabbing at it with a knife he had pulled from his left boot and biting savagely at the green fronds that lashed his face.

John and Felham looked on, open-mouthed. So did the rest of the queue of men, who had fallen quite silent.

“Mr. Hackbrace!” said a new voice, one high and clear and sweet. John turned and saw the speaker, a short man so fat as to be nearly spherical. He had a beardless face like a painted doll’s. He linked arms with the mousy man and the pair of them lifted their voices in shrill song:

“The little white lamb in the meadow so green

Looks out on the wood where the wolf he is seen

I’ll not be afraid, says the lambkin so dear

For Jesus, sweet Jesus, sweet Jesus is near!”

The song had an immediate effect on the Reverend Mr. Hackbrace. The flailing about and frenzied stabbing stopped. He lay limp, gasping, and lifted his sandy face to croak the last line with them.

“Sweet Jesus,” echoed John.

The two singers turned to face him.

“You see?” said the thin one, with an air of triumph. “What mastiff was ever so vicious in the service of his lord and master? Or so obedient? Of course, we must accompany him.”

“You might sign on,” said Felham, “but—the other one’s a castrato, ain’t he? What the hell use is that going to be on board a ship?”

“I am a deadly fighter, poltroon!” said the fat one, narrowing his eyes.

“Are you insulting my cousin?” said the Reverend Mr. Hackbrace, getting unsteadily to his feet.

“No, not at all!” said John. “Sure, it’d be an honor to sign him on. What’s your name, friend?”

“Dick Pettibone,” said the eunuch, setting his hand on his hip in a challenging sort of way.

“And I am Bob Plum,” said the mouse-man.

“Right,” said Felham, and read them in. They signed, all three, and waded out to take their places in the longboat.

“Christ,” sighed Felham, and wiped his face with a handkerchief. “Who’s next? Step up, you lot!”

They were two who stepped up next, hand in hand. They were boucaniers , rogue men who lived by hunting wild cows and curing the beef over smoke-pits.

Both carried long muskets and wore tunics of rawhide; no brocade for these gentlemen, no plumes nor gold lace. Their limbs were bare, save for leather leggings below the knee, and their naked feet looked hard as horn. Both reeked of the barbecue. Both smoked clay pipes, wreathing themselves in yet more fume, as though to provide their natural element while they were away from it. In this much they were identical.

The differences were, that one was tall and the other was short and squat; one was black, and the other was white; one was clean-shaven, with a mass of knotted and beaded hair on his head, while the other’s face was so heavily bearded only his red eyes and the tip of a little, red nose were visible.

The fact that they were holding hands didn’t weigh much. There weren’t any women amongst the cow-killers and maroons, so they got up to certain practical vices to compensate for it. The gleaming muskets counted for a great deal more, as boucaniers were deadly marksmen and the toughest of fighters. John and Felham exchanged glances, hardly able to believe their luck.

“Names?” said Felham.

“I am Jago and this is Jacques,” said the black. He had lived amongst both Spanish and French, to judge from his accent. The white man merely nodded in confirmation. “We hate the Spanish cochons . We will sail with you.”