James Nelson: The Pirate Round

No reason to think it will be different today, Tew thought, but he did not believe it. There was something different. It was nothing he could hold down, just a quality that this ship had that the other did not. With his glass he could see men on her decks. There was no sense of panic, no rushing about. He could not hear the sounds of frantic preparation. The ship just stood on, stately despite her ungainliness, as if the pirate sloop closing for an attack were no more than a minor annoyance, a yapping dog at the heels of an untroubled bull.

Thomas Tew was not frightened. He had been frightened before, many times, in the course of his wandering life, and he knew that this was not fear. It was something else. Concern? Apprehension? A dull discomfort in his bowels that told him he was making a mistake, that he had pushed his luck too far.

But there was nothing for it. He looked down into the waist, wondering idly if there were some way he could break off the engagement. But he could see there was not. In the faces of his men he could see lust for gold, avarice that would not be arrested.

There were sixty of them and one of him, and if he insisted that they avoid this great ship, then they would just throw him into the sea and attack her anyway. There was nothing to support his authority as captain save for the traditions and usage of the sea, and those were a pretty flimsy bulwark against greed.

He ran his tongue over his parched lips, took another step forward in anticipation of issuing an order. His throat was dry; he was afraid his voice would come out as no more than a croak. He wondered if he should ask someone to fetch him some water, if that would look like weakness on his part.

What in all hell is the matter with me?

“Reeves,” he said, and his voice was like gravel, “fetch me a cup of water.”

Reeves nodded-“Aye, Captain”-and hurried forward. Tew felt himself relax a bit, felt the tension ease. He looked over the Mogul’s ship once more and tried to view it with disdain and derision, but he couldn’t quite muster that.

It was the quiet; that was what bothered him, he realized. He could remember that first treasure ship. Two cables away, and he could hear the sailors and soldiers shouting in their mounting panic and confusion. He recalled how the Englishmen had stood firm and silent, waiting for their moment, while the Moors had degenerated into chaos.

But not now. He heard none of that now. Just silence, and it made him profoundly uneasy.

Reeves came back on the quarterdeck carrying a tin cup running over with water. Tew took the water, nodded his thanks, not trusting his voice, and drank it down in three big mouthfuls. Green with growth and warm enough to shave with, still it had a marvelous restorative effect, more than any liquor could have had at that moment, and at last he dared speak to the men. He stepped up to the break of the quarterdeck.

“Stand fast at your guns, lads! We’ll give them a broadside and then lay alongside and board ’em! Scream like the damned when you go up the side-it’ll scare the fight right out of ’em! You lads that was with me in ’92, you’ll recall!”

That little speech brought a cheer in the charged atmosphere, but Tew knew that any words from him at that moment would have had the same effect.

“You lads that was with me in ’92…” There were not more than a dozen of them. The rest had elected to stay in Newport and enjoy their wealth or had never returned at all, had remained on that island paradise of Madagascar, lounging their lives away in the tropic warmth with all the liquor and women a man could dream of.

Tew felt a sudden twinge of regret as he thought of those men back in Newport. That could have been him. He need not have lifted a finger again for the rest of his life. He could be playing with his daughters on a broad, grassy lawn, not sweating like a plow horse under the Arabian sun.

These men, this new crew, they were different. Not like the original Amitys. Those men had been a band of brothers. But these, they were fortune hunters, men out for quick riches, careless of anything else. Tew found that he resented them. They had talked him into this voyage, he was doing all this for them, and they gave not a tinker’s cuss for his sacrifice.

The treasure ship was a cable length away-two hundred yards- and it was time to stop such useless thought.

“Aim for her rails, lads, sweep her deck! We’ve but the one broadside to clear the way for us!”

No cheering this time. With the huge ship looming over them, dwarfing them even from that distance, the men were focused entirely on what would happen in the next ten minutes. Tew saw men yawn, a sure sign of fear, saw them pretend it was just boredom. He turned his eyes outboard, ran them along the Mogul’s ship.

God, she is a beastly great thing… Tew wondered if she was even larger than the first. She looked like a floating mountain. She was frightening to behold.

“Ready, lads…” Less than one hundred yards between them. In the waist the gun captains sighted down barrels, made last-minute adjustments to elevation. Such niceties would have little effect on accuracy. It was just something to do.

Tew gripped the handle of his sword and tried to fight down his rising panic. It was not something he had ever experienced before, and he did not know how to resist it. He had to give his orders precisely- and at precisely the right moment.

Fifty yards separated the ships, and from across the water, clear as a ringing bell on a still morning, came a single order, firm, decisive, in the Moorish tongue, and Tew guessed that order was “Fire!” so without thinking he, too, shouted “Fire!” down at the men in the waist.

The Amity fired, and the Mogul’s ship fired, nearly at the same instant. Great clouds of gray smoke banked in the narrowing space between them, the roar of the guns filling the air like something tangible. The Amity shook underfoot as the Mogul’s great guns hammered her sides, and Tew could think only, The other ship did not fire on us…

And then he felt himself pushed aside, as if the hand of God had reached through the smoke and given him the slightest of shoves. With never a thought he dropped his sword and clapped his hands over his belly, not even certain why he had done so. Then he felt a burning sensation there.

He staggered back a few steps, looked down at his hands. There was blood running over his fingers, streaming off his hands, pooling on the white deck. Bright red blood, pumping, pumping through his fingers.

He moved his hands a bit, enough to look behind them, and he could see the gleam of something else, and now he could feel it against his palms, and he knew it was not flesh.

It was his bowels, he realized. He stomach was torn away, and he was holding his guts in with his hands, and with that realization he felt the first wave of agony sweep over him.

He fell to his knees, saw the smoky, chaotic world of the Amity’s deck swirl around him, saw faces turn toward him, heard weird voices shouting, men running aft to where he was kneeling.

No, no… he thought.

No, abandoning the Gambia was not the most important decision of his life. He saw that now. It was sailing again for the Red Sea, and it was with his life that he would pay for that decision.

He looked down. The deck and the red pool of blood was swimming in front of him, rushing at him, the perspective changing fast. He hit the deck, and what breath he had was knocked from him, and only then did he realize that he had fallen.

He lay there, motionless, his cheek pressed against the hot planking, looking across the deck. Such an odd angle. He could see men’s shoes and bare feet, could see where a corner had been imperfectly swept, could see under the rail to the bright blue water beyond.