James Nelson - The Pirate Round

The quartermaster came running up. “Get the oars out of the boats, and we’ll set the prisoners adrift. That should keep them out of trouble for a while.”

“Good thought,” Billy Bird said, and then Bickerstaff said, “Whatever is that?”

Marlowe followed Bickerstaff’s finger. There was something or someone thrashing in the water, fifty yards away. He could not tell what it might be.

“Here.” Billy Bird offered up a small telescope. Bickerstaff took it, pulled it open, trained it at the thrashing creature. A moment’s silence, and then Bickerstaff said, “It is Peleg Dinwiddie. He is clinging to a log or some such.”

Peleg Dinwiddie? How odd to hear that name. Marlowe had entirely forgotten about his former first officer. It seemed a hundred years since he had last seen him. What had become of him? What was he about?

Bickerstaff offered the glass to Marlowe, and Marlowe took it, trained it on the man in the water. It was not a powerful telescope, but strong enough that Marlowe could make out Dinwiddie’s form, the features of his face, even under a growth of beard. “Another bad choice for old Peleg, I reckon,” Marlowe said, snapping the glass shut. “Billy, set your men to rounding up the prisoners. I’ll get Burgess on the sweeps.”

“Marlowe.” Bickerstaff stopped him just as he was stepping away. “You don’t intend to leave Dinwiddie, do you?”

“Leave him? No, he left me. Told me to sod off, you may recall. I am doing as he wished.”

“He is obviously trying to reach the ship.”

“And doing a piss-poor job, just like he did as first officer.” Marlowe made to step away again, but Bickerstaff grabbed him by the arm, hard, turned him back around.

“You cannot abandon him,” he said, a simple statement of fact.

“Damn him, I say.”

“Marlowe, whatever temptation Yancy lured him into, whatever he put in his head, you were still the one that brought him here. You were the one who recruited him, convinced him to sail the Pirate Round. He was loyal to you once, and you to him.”

Marlowe held Bickerstaff’s eyes, furious at this defense of his faithless officer, furious at this interruption at that critical juncture. The ropes holding the Queen’s Venture groaned again, and the Elizabeth Galley’s battery and the Speedwell’s battery went off, clouds of smoke rolling over them, the deafening noise of the guns, the shot smashing rigging, rail, men, the shouts of the men at their tasks, or fighting, or dying, and on that little patch of deck, silence, the two men holding one another’s eyes.

And Marlowe found himself conjuring up the picture of Dinwiddie- stolid, unimaginative, impressionable Dinwiddie-at race day at the Page place. The look in Dinwiddie’s eyes as he dangled Madagascar in front of him. Ingenuous Dinwiddie in his silly best dress, preparing for the governor’s dinner.

I set that poor bastard up from the onset. I am as guilty as Yancy.

“I cannot leave now. We are in the middle of a bloody sea fight!”

“I do not want you to leave, Marlowe. I want you to give me leave to go. And a manned boat.”

Marlowe glared at him. Bickerstaff was not asking him to be a hero, or even a decent human being, just asking that he, Bickerstaff, be allowed to be one.

Around them the great guns blasted, the vessels shook with the impact, the smoke choked them, made their eyes water. The noise was unbearable. Why must I bloody bother with this? Marlowe wondered.

But Marlowe could not do it. He could not let Bickerstaff go alone, into that kind of danger. Nor could he order another of the officers to go with him.

A cry of exasperation built in his guts. “Ahh, goddamn you!” He looked away, looked back. “Very well,” Marlowe said at last. “We’ll take the gig… no, we’ll take the longboat.” He turned fast, stepped across the deck to the starboard side where the pilot ladder hung down to the boats.

“You do not have to come,” Bickerstaff shouted, following behind. “You have your duty here.”

“Billy and Honeyman have things in hand, but if those boats reach the ship, we’re done for. Perhaps I can help draw them off.” It made it more palatable, thinking of a genuine tactical reason for what he was doing, not just saving Dinwiddie’s dumb arse.

They stopped at the head of the ladder, and Bickerstaff said, “You are doing the right thing.”

“Yes, yes, always doing the right goddamned thing.” Marlowe turned. “Billy Bird, you will be in command in my absence. Get everyone clear of the bloody Queen’s Venture before she rolls over. Hands aloft to loosen sail.” He turned again. “Honeyman, get some men in the longboat. Muskets if they got ’em, but don’t waste time looking for them. Set a swivel gun in the bow. There are four of them aft on the quarterdeck, and I see powder and shot beside them. Go!”

Honeyman began to shout orders, Billy Bird began to shout orders. Marlowe directed men down the ladder and into the longboat floating below.

Low in the water, the boats had been mostly spared from the incessant fire from the Speedwell. The barge had a neat hole clean through both sides, and the very tip of the stem of one of the longboats was shot away, but beyond that they were intact.

Across the deck, running, led by Duncan Honeyman, came twenty men. Burgess carried a swivel gun, cradled like a baby in his arms. The others carried muskets, pistols, cutlasses. They swarmed down the side, handed the swivel down, set it in place, took their places on the thwarts, set oars in tholes.

Marlowe and Bickerstaff came last, sat in the stern sheets. The Speedwell fired, the round shot slamming into the hull mere feet above their heads, showering them with a fine spray of splinters.

“Give way!” Marlowe called, and the oars came down, and the men pulled with a will, eager to put the Elizabeth Galley between themselves and the Speedwell’s broadsides.

Stroke, stroke, they pulled under the Galley’s counter, around the Queen’s Venture’s stern, and the Speedwell was lost from sight. Marlowe pushed the tiller over. He could see Dinwiddie now, clinging to whatever that was he was clinging to, could see the two big boats pulling fast for the Queen’s Venture. This was going to be a close thing.

The men leaned into the oars, driving the big boat across the harbor. In the bow Burgess loaded the swivel, poured powder from a horn into the touchhole.

“There!” Bickerstaff pointed. One of the big boats had broken away, was making for them. He had drawn off half the attacking force, and he took some comfort from that.

“Probably don’t know what we’re about, but figure to stop us anyway!” Marlowe yelled over the gunfire.

Fifty feet from Dinwiddie, and the other boat was closing fast. A bang of a swivel gun and case shot tore up the water, crackled into the side of the boat, and smashed into the arm of the man at number-two oar, who let go of his sweep, screamed in pain, clapped a hand over the spurting wound.

“Let ’em have it, Burgess!” Marlowe shouted. Burgess already had the swivel trained on the approaching boat, aimed straight on at their bow, straight at the man feverishly reloading their swivel.

Burgess snapped a pistol over the train of powder in the touchhole. The sparks drifted down, tiny, delicate points of light, and then the powder flashed and the swivel roared out, pushing the whole boat sideways, and the man at stroke oar in the approaching boat was blown away, tossed back into his shipmates as he disappeared below the gunnel.

That should cool their enthusiasm, Marlowe thought. And then from beyond the bow, a voice like a memory, like something out of a dream, floating through the gunfire: “Help! Help! Here!”

Peleg Dinwiddie.

Marlowe half stood, looked beyond the bow. Dinwiddie was clinging to an overturned dugout, and he was slipping. Two boat lengths ahead. Another stroke. “Backwater! Backwater!” The oars came down, the tholes creaking with the pressure as the momentum of the heavy boat was checked, and then they were dead in the water, and Marlowe was looking down into the bearded, gray, terrified, wide-eyed face of Peleg Dinwiddie. He was a frightening sight.