James Nelson - The Pirate Round

Marlowe peered over the side. He could see the water below and realized the sky was growing lighter. He could see nothing of the sail or the severed lashings. The whole issue must have sunk to the bottom of the harbor. There was no retrieving it now.

Marlowe, furious, like an injured wolf, turned and growled at Brownlaw. Brownlaw pushed harder against the bulwark, tossed his sword to the deck, a gesture of supplication. Two steps and Marlowe was on him, grabbed him by his collar, jerked him close. Their faces inches apart, Marlowe looked into the man’s frightened eyes. Brown-law was shaking his head side to side, a mute plea for mercy, and Marlowe realized that he was not going to hurt the man.

Fifteen years before he would have killed Brownlaw, just on principle, the principles that he held then, but now he would not. He was too old, had done too much bloodletting.

You are one lucky bastard, Marlowe thought as he shoved Brownlaw away. The young officer stumbled, and then Marlowe heard a shout, a cry of despair-“You stupid, stupid whoreson!”-and he saw Johnson, just a shadow, snatch a pistol from the man next to him, cock it, and fire.

The flash lit up Brownlaw’s face, eyes shut tight, jaw clenched, the fine spray of blood and bone from the back of his skull as he was flung against the bulwark, already dead, and his body crumpled to the deck.

Johnson, Marlowe’s newest recruit. Apparently he did not care to see riches come and go so quickly.

Marlowe had no thought to spare for either man, living or dead. He turned to meet Billy Bird, who was hurrying up beside him.

“Sail’s gone. She’ll fill quick,” Marlowe said.

“I could get the lads on fothering another. A lot of good hands here.”

Marlowe recalled the cable tier, the cold water rising fast around him. “No time. She’ll sink before they’re done. Pass some more cables to bind the ships together. Bowse them up good and tight. Then break open the hatches, we’ll sway as much as we can aboard the Elizabeth Galley, then cut this bucket away, make off as soon as it’s full light.” He looked to the east. The mountains were black against a low band of dark gray sky. “We have an hour. Whatever we can salvage in an hour, that is our take.”

There was silence on the deck, and it lasted three seconds. Then Billy Bird turned and shouted, “You heard him, lads! We’ve an hour to get what we can, so turn to! There’s our own people still locked down below! Get them up and set these bloody prisoners to work, and let’s clean this filthy bucket out!”

The men on deck scattered in ten different directions. It was like nothing Marlowe had ever seen, like the companies of three men-ofwar all clearing the same ship for action. He had never seen sailors move so fast, work so efficiently and with such cooperation.

The wedges were driven from the main hatch of the Queen’s Venture and the Elizabeth Galley as well, hatch covers pulled back, gratings lifted off. Another gang of men cast off the stay tackle. They laid the falls of the tackle along and saw them manned. Still more were ripping off the after hatches, and on the Queen’s Venture they were using axes to widen their openings.

Up from below came bedraggled, filthy prisoners, Marlowe’s men and Billy Bird’s men, those not taken ashore. They were half starved and confused and trying to understand this sudden change of fortune, this shift in circumstance. Like sleepwalkers they were directed toward the falls of stay tackles and yard tackles to add their meager strength to the effort.

Also from below, the better-fed men of Roger Press’s command, driven topside at the ends of pistols and cutlasses. They were the men who had forced the Roundsmen to load the Queen’s Venture with booty, and now they were made to unload her again.

It was an astounding effort, all the more so because it was carried out with never an order from Marlowe or Billy. Honeyman was there to coordinate efforts, and Burgess and the Revenge’s boatswain as well, but for the most part they just fell to. They were seamen to a man- not man-of-war’s men, trained to a single task-but Roundsmen, whose death or fortune rested on their own initiative. They knew what to do, and they did it, fast and efficiently.

By the time the first iron-bound box of booty rose from the Queen’s Venture’s hold, twisting at the end of the stay tackle, the morning light was enough that Marlowe could see the activity on the deck of his own ship, lashed alongside. The men there were working the stay tackle as well, emptying the Elizabeth Galley’s hold of whatever they could- food, water, supplies-to make more room for the treasure.

Across the deck of the Queen’s Venture went the boxes, across the deck of the Elizabeth Galley and down through that ship’s main hatch and down into her hold. Then, fast as could be done, the tackle was retrieved, and then the next chest of treasure or bundle of silk or barrel of spice was hove up from below and swayed across, Queen’s Venture to Elizabeth Galley.

Marlowe paced back and forth on the Queen’s Venture foredeck. There was little for him to do but wait. Wait until they had secured all the treasure that they could, wait until the moment when he had to order the men to leave the rest, to set sail and slip the cable and cut away the ropes that bound the Galley to the Venture.

Just as he was thinking about that very thing, the Queen’s Venture gave a little lurch, tilted away from the Elizabeth Galley. The ropes groaned, made tiny popping sounds of fibers snapping. She was listing already, lying at an odd angle, a few degrees off an even keel.

“She’s filling. Fast,” Marlowe said to Billy Bird, and Billy nodded.

“We’ve a bit more time, I should think,” Billy said.

Then, across the water, from the deck of the Speedwell, clear even over the commotion of emptying the Queen’s Venture’s hold, the order “Fire!” and the gray dawn was torn apart as the tender fired her full broadside into the Elizabeth Galley.

On the top of the hill, below the big house, in the back of the cell formerly occupied by Roger Press and his men, entirely forgotten by everyone save for the jailer who brought him his twice-daily food and water, Peleg Dinwiddie stared at the open iron-bar door.

For week upon week he had sat alone in the cell, alone with his own thoughts, the worst torture of all. The rack, it seemed to him, would have been welcome, the thumbscrews, branding, flogging-anything. Any of it would have meant human contact and pain to blot out the thoughts, the constant, unchecked thoughts.

Weeks of nothing, and then the most extraordinary series of events. First Roger Press and Thomas Marlowe, both marched down as prisoners. Dinwiddie recognized most of the men who were put in the cell with Marlowe. They were his former shipmates, men under his command. Some he did not recognize, such as the foppish fellow whom Marlowe called Billy.

But they were put in the other cell, and Press and his men were put in the cell that Dinwiddie occupied. Peleg had kept to the back, to the shadows, did not wish to be noticed. He was noticed, of course, not by Press but by others, and those men who did see him did not say anything to him. They just looked him over, turned away.

He was filthy, his once-fine clothes nearly rags, almost two months’ growth of beard on his face. He reckoned he looked like some madman, locked away, and he was not certain he wasn’t.

Dinwiddie had sat as silent and unseen witness to the fast-changing situation, as first Marlowe had been released by Elizabeth and then Press by Yancy. The cells had been emptied, the door left open, and still Dinwiddie sat there, unmoving, staring.

But now his thoughts were off on a new tangent. Marlowe was there, free, on St. Mary’s. It could mean only that he was heading for the Elizabeth Galley, making sail for home.