James Nelson - The Pirate Round

Marlowe had planned on giving Honeyman temporary command, ordering him to return for them at dawn, but he never really thought Honeyman would. He figured that Honeyman would head for the horizon, leave them to rot, so his real plan was to make his way to Madagascar in the open boat with Bickerstaff and Elizabeth, once he had freed her, and find passage from there. It was a risk he had to take.

Back on board, climbing up the side under Nagel’s vigilant eye, Marlowe had ordered the anchor up and topsails set. They stood out of the harbor with never a word spoken, save for those necessary to the running of the ship.

When at last they had cleared the headland, Honeyman approached. “Captain? Where’s Dinwiddie? And Mrs. Marlowe?”

“Dinwiddie has elected to stay behind, or so it would seem. My wife has been kidnapped. Please see the jolly boat cleared away and over the starboard side, quiet as you can. I do not want anyone on the island to see. Bickerstaff and I are going back for my wife. You will have command of the ship until we return.”

For a moment the quartermaster did not move or say anything, to Marlowe’s annoyance. At last he said, “I’m with you.”

“No,” Marlowe said.

“There’s no one at Yancy’s house recognizes me. They all know you and Bickerstaff. You need me with you.”

Marlowe had no argument to make. Honeyman was right. And for some reason Honeyman needed to be a part of this.

They got the jolly boat over the side, and Marlowe gave his orders to Flanders, who inherited command of the ship. Honeyman went down into the boat, Bickerstaff ready to follow, and up stepped Hesiod, cutlass and two braces of pistols draped over him, haversack at his side. His body looked as solid as a statue. “Jolly boat’ll move faster with four men to pull oar” was all he said.

Marlowe looked at Bickerstaff, and Bickerstaff nodded. Among the former slaves at Marlowe House, Hesiod had been the hunter, the one who could disappear into the woods with an old smooth-bore musket and some snares and come back with game: deer, turkey, rabbit- nothing was safe from him. A good man to have, but Marlowe felt compelled to say, “Hesiod, there’s a better-than-even chance we won’t come back.”

“Don’t matter. It’s Mrs. Marlowe,” he said as he stepped down and took his place at the oar.

They pushed off from the Elizabeth Galley’s side, the vessel never slowing in her stately progression away from the harbor mouth. They let her pass, bobbing in her wake, then pulled for the shore, oars double-banked, a dark boat invisible on the dark water.

It took twenty minutes to fetch the shore. Honeyman went over the side in water up to his knees, pulled the boat farther up. Then the rest jumped out, and they dragged the boat up the deserted beach, half lifting it to keep the keel from making a grinding noise on the sand.

They let the boat down easy and then hurried across the beach to the edge of the trees and followed that toward the glimmer of lanterns that marked the pirate haven of St. Mary’s, half a mile away.

Marlowe and Bickerstaff were dressed in old clothes-slop trousers and tar-stained shirts, sashes, battered cocked hats. Marlowe wore the tall boots and faded blue coat and cross belts he had saved since his days on the account. The clothes gave him a certain strength and reassurance. It felt good to strip off the dandified attire he had worn to Yancy’s dinner and to put on these old, rugged, well-worn garments. They were like armor to him; in them he felt able to fight back.

Honeyman and Hesiod were dressed in their usual garb, save for the profusion of weapons that hung from their belts and cross belts. But none of them looked in any way unique for the pirate enclave.

Four white men and one black, equals and brothers in arms. In nearly any other place on earth they would be absurdly conspicuous, but not on St. Mary’s, not among the pirates. As long as they were not recognized, they would not attract notice.

They came at last to the edge of the dirt road that paralleled the harbor, where it seemed to dissolve into scrub and then jungle. Hesiod pushed ahead, peered along the road, and when he saw that it was all clear, he signaled the others.

They fought their way out of the brush, walked down the center of the road. Stealth would attract notice, but there was nothing odd about four brethren staggering along. They were one hundred yards from the intersection with the road that ran up the hill to Yancy’s place. They could hear the distant sounds of the night’s bacchanal: shouting and music and women’s screams and gunshots.

They stopped, and Hesiod pulled a bottle of rum from his haversack, uncorked it, and they passed it around as they talked in low tones.

It would appear as the most innocent thing in the world in that place, if anyone was watching, four men sharing a bottle and a yarn.

“Stockade’s pretty solid, far as I ever seen,” Honeyman observed. “Don’t reckon there’s a break anywhere.”

“I got ten fathom of rope in my haversack,” said Hesiod. “If we find a dark place, we could up and over pretty easy, I reckon.”

“It’ll be some hard climbing to get around the back,” Honeyman said. “That house was built in a damned good place, far as defending it goes.”

“No,” Marlowe said. His anxiety was growing to the point where he could not contain it. Every second that passed put Elizabeth in greater danger. Standing still was making him wild with fear. “No time for such fancy plans. We go right through the gate.”

The others looked at him. Hesiod nodded slightly. Marlowe did not see any argument in their faces.

“We must be smart, however,” said Bickerstaff. “We are outnumbered ten to one at least. It will do Elizabeth no good if we are slaughtered. It may in fact make her situation worse.”

“Very well. Smart. But we go right at ’em.”

Marlowe led the way down the road. He and Bickerstaff pulled their hats low over their eyes, and they all assumed a slightly unsteady gait as they made their way past the ramshackle taverns and tent whorehouses and the groups of men sitting around open fires, drinking and eating. The air was all wood smoke and expended gunpowder and meat cooking and rum and unwashed men. No one made any comment or even seemed to notice as they walked by.

Halfway up the hill Honeyman stopped. “Captain, they know you at the house, but Hesiod and me, we ain’t been. What say you and Mr. Bickerstaff wait here, we’ll see to them bastards at the gate?”

Marlowe hesitated. He did not want to stop. But what Honeyman said made sense. “Very well. But hurry.”

Marlowe and Bickerstaff stepped off the road, standing half hidden behind a thick palm that rose up into the night. They watched the two others staggering up the road until they were lost in the dark. The gate, with the ubiquitous guards, was fifty yards away.

The night was still and the sounds of the carousing at the bottom of the hill muted, and Marlowe could hear the guard challenging Honeyman and Hesiod. It was quiet after that, and then a burst of laughter. More quiet, and then Marlowe heard a sound like the wind knocked from someone or a body hitting the ground, he could not tell. Another minute, and then Hesiod’s voice from the dark: “All right, Captain” was all he said.

Marlowe and Bickerstaff stepped from the underbrush and hurried up the hill. The gate to the stockade loomed in front of them, visible in the circle of light thrown off by the lantern the guards had hung from a hook just outside the big door.

One of the guards was still standing there, in the half-alert position that Marlowe was accustomed to seeing, and he realized it was Honeyman. Another guard sat leaning against the big door, again in the relaxed attitude that the pirate sentries assumed. His eyes were open. The lantern light glinted on the blood that soaked his shirt and coat.