James Nelson - The Pirate Round

“Mind if I join you?” Marlowe stood in front of the small table. The man looked up, regarded Marlowe for a long moment, said nothing. Marlowe was wearing his seagoing clothes: faded blue coat, cotton waistcoat and shirt, and soft, well-worn canvas breeches. The clothes he might wear to call on the governor would not answer in a place like this.

Finally the man nodded to the other seat. Marlowe put his mug on the table and sat.

“Name’s Marlowe. Thomas Marlowe.”

The man nodded.

“I’m shipping a crew. Tobacco to London. You’ve the look of a seaman. Are you a’wanting a berth?”

The man looked up from the table, met Marlowe’s eye, and then nodded, slowly. “Perhaps.”

“Ship paid off? Sail without you?”

“No. I sailed in here as bosun on a merchantman bound out of Plymouth. But the master and I didn’t see eye to eye, and now I’m on the beach.”

“What was the matter?”

“The master was a horse’s arse.”

Marlowe nodded. This made things difficult. A judgment call. Perhaps the master was a horse’s arse. Or perhaps this man was incompetent, a thief, a drunkard. But these were the risks one always took, hiring on a crew. Sailors were not tame men, not bookkeepers or dancing masters. They were the original troublemakers. It was little wonder that Jesus had picked mariners as his apostles when he wanted to stir things up.

“You shipped as bosun, eh? I’ve need of a bosun. Care to come aboard for the fitting out, see if you want to sail with us?”

“Tobacco to London? I guess I was keeping a weather eye out for something that was a bit more… lucrative.”

“So am I. I had a thought to perhaps sail to Madagascar, after.”

The man grinned. “ ‘Perhaps’? That don’t sound too certain.”

“It’s not certain. It’s the most I can promise.”

What in hell am I saying? Marlowe thought. He was starting to bandy this Madagascar thing around like he had decided on it, which he had not, not at all. And even if he had, Bickerstaff and Elizabeth would never go along with it.

But he needed sailors, and they needed inducement, so there it was.

“All right,” the man said at last. “I see something in you I like. I’ll come aboard for the fitting out, and if we can stand each other, I’ll sail as bosun with you.” He grinned again. “Then we’ll see what you decide.”

His name was Honeyman. Duncan Honeyman, and he arrived aboard the Elizabeth Galley with three sailors in tow, men also looking for berths.

“Friends of yours, Honeyman?”

“Shipmates. They thought the master of our old ship was a horse’s arse, too.”

Marlowe nodded, looked the men over. They were a rough-looking bunch. Gold earrings; big knives worn with ease in the small of their backs; arms like gnarled tree limbs; long hair, clubbed like Honeyman wore it; wide slop trousers, patched and tar-stained. They each chewed absently on the tobacco in their cheeks. They smelled of rum and sweat. But he had seen worse, and shipped with much worse.

“Very well,” Marlowe said. “I’ll offer you the same terms I offered Honeyman. I’ll hire you for the fitting out, seaman’s wages, and if you work out, you can stay on for the voyage. Tobacco to London and back with cargo, that’s all I can promise. And I’ll thank you to not say more, regarding any other venture we might try.”

The three men exchanged glances but made no protest. At last they all muttered their agreement.

Honeyman ran his eyes along the deck and up the lower masts. He squinted slightly, but beside that his face showed no expression. “This the crew?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“They sailors?”

“Not yet. But they’ll do a hard day’s work. And they’ll learn. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Not if you don’t.”

“Good. Take these men and report to Mr. Dinwiddie, on the quarterdeck there. With the black coat. He’s first officer. He’ll set you to work.”

Honeyman nodded, and without another word he led the three men across the brow and aft. Five minutes later they were aloft, seeing the main topmast set in place, the standing rigging ganged over the masthead and set up.

For three weeks the Elizabeth Galley’s rig rose higher as masts were stepped, yards crossed, running rigging rove through blocks and belayed at the pin rails. At the same time her hull sank deeper and deeper in the river as stores of water and food came aboard, and after that barrel after barrel of tobacco, all that Marlowe House had harvested that year and much of the harvest of the Marlowes’ three closest neighbors as well.

Marlowe continued his recruitment, picking up another five able-bodied seamen, and saw to the outfitting of the great cabin and the acquisition of those things they would need for navigation.

Bickerstaff took careful inventory of everything that went aboard. Dinwiddie saw to the stowage, and Honeyman, quiet and generally surly, proved at least to be a competent bosun and was left to supervise the setting up of the rig and bending of sail.

Elizabeth kept track of the money and fretted about their funds, which were being spent at a frightening rate on stores and gear and all those things that a ship consumed before she could put to sea.

Marlowe tried to assuage her fears. He did not succeed.

The night before they sailed, the night that Marlowe should have been resting after the unmitigated labor of getting the ship ready for sea in an absurdly short time, he found himself instead pushing a wheelbarrow across the dark lawn of Marlowe House. The wheelbarrow held a shovel and an unlit lantern. He had to wonder at himself.

Old habits died hard, his need for a secret held back. He thought of a trick he had used many times at sea, dragging a sea anchor behind his ship to slow it down, give an enemy or victim a false sense of his own ship’s abilities. Then the sea anchor was cut away, and suddenly his ship could move with an unanticipated speed. This was like that. The little thing held in reserve.

He pushed the wheelbarrow onto a trail in the woods, and when he was lost from sight from Marlowe House, he pulled out his tinder pouch and lit the lantern. In the light of its feeble glow he made his way down the trail to the spot of dirt he had last turned six years before.

It was not easy to find-the weeds and the shoots of young trees had grown up around it and over it-but Marlowe had been careful over the years never to let it become lost completely in the bracken.

He set the lantern down, lifted the shovel, and jammed it into the dark earth. Five minutes of digging, and the spade hit the iron-bound box, hidden under a foot of dirt. He moved the lantern closer and worked the point of the shovel around until the box was fully exposed.

Why have I never told Elizabeth about this? Or Francis?

It was not a matter of trust. He trusted them both, completely, more than he had ever trusted anyone.

Perhaps that was it. He had never trusted anyone, until he had met them. Perhaps he could not get past that.

He breathed deep, readied himself, and then grasped the handle of the box and pulled. He thought at first it must still be caught on something. It would not move. He tried again, and this time it yielded, just a bit, and he realized that it was just heavy as hell, which he knew. Another deep breath, he braced himself and tugged, and the box came up from the dirt. He pulled it over the edge of the hole and rested it on the ground.

He stood up, flexed his back, gulped breath, cursed his creeping age. When he had recovered from the exertion, he knelt beside the box and held the lantern close.

It was wrapped in tar-soaked canvas, which was still intact. He pulled his sheath knife, cut away the canvas, and was pleased to see that the box was not rusted through. It looked pretty much as it had when he buried it in 1701.