Mermaid was moving fast, the ship bowling along
with her sails filled, the canvas billowing, cordage creaking and straining. She
climbed over the next wave, her bow lifting to linger a moment before swooping
down into another deluge of spray. Completing the seesaw movement her stern
soared high as the roller trundled beneath her keel. The wind smelt of hot, dry
and dusty land, of jungle and grass savannah. Of Africa.
The look out,
clad in an old shirt and sailor's breeches was perched high in the crosstrees,
one hundred and thirty feet above the deck. Excited, he pointed to the horizon.
"Over there Jesamiah, that's where I saw 'er. I swear I saw a
sail!"
With the ease of
years of practice, Jesamiah Acorne stepped from the rigging on to the narrow
platform that swayed with the lift and plunge of the ship. He hooked his arm
through a t'gallant shroud and brought his telescope to his eye, scanned the
ocean. Nothing. Nothing except a flat expanse of blue emptiness going on,
unbroken, for twenty miles. And beyond that? Another twenty, and
another.
These were the waters of the Gulf of
Guinea, the huge stretch of sea beneath the bulb of land where the trade wealth
of West Africa was turned into fat profit: gold, ivory and slaves. The African
coast, where merchants found their plentiful supply of human misery and where an
entire ship's crew could be wiped out by fever within a week.
Where
pirates hunted in search of easy prey.
The crew of the Mermaid were not
interested in slavers or the foetid coast. Their rough-voiced, ragged-faced
Captain, Malachias Taylor, had more lucrative things in mind - the sighting of
another ship, preferably a full-laden, poorly manned merchantman with a rich
cargo worth plundering.
"What can y'see?" he shouted from the deck,
squinting upwards at his quartermaster, the relentless sun dazzling his eyes.
His second-in-command, Jesamiah, like his father before him, was one of the best
seamen Taylor knew.
"Nothing! If young Daniel here did see a sail he has
better sight than I 'ave," Jesamiah called down, the frustration clear in his
voice. All the same, he studied the sea again with the
telescope.
Jesamiah Acorne. Quick to smile, formidable when angered.
Tall, tanned, with strong arms and a seaman's tar-stained and callused hands.
His black hair fell as an untidy chaos of natural curls to his shoulders, laced
into it, lengths of blue ribbon which streamed about his face in the wind, the
whipping ends stinging his cheeks. The ladies ashore thought them a wonderful
prize when he occasionally offered one as a keepsake.
If there was a ship,
Daniel would only have glimpsed her highest sails, the topgallants; the rest of
her would still be hull down, unseen below the curve of the horizon. "I think
you had too much rum last night, my lad," Jesamiah grinned. "Your eyes are
playing tricks on you."
Young Daniel was adamant. "I saw her I say. I'll
wager m'next wedge of baccy I did!"
"You know I cannot abide the stuff,"
Jesamiah chuckled good-natured as he stretched out his arm to ruffle the lad's
mop of hair. He had turned his back on anything to do with tobacco - except
stealing it - seven years ago when his elder brother had thrown him off their
dead father's plantation, with the threat he would hang if ever he returned. But
then, Phillipe Mereno was only a half brother and he had always been a cheat and
a bully. One day, for the misery of his childhood, Jesamiah would find the
opportunity to go back and finish beating the bastard to a pulp.
Out of habit he touched the gold
charm dangling from his right earlobe: an acorn, to match the signet ring he had
worn since early youth. Presents from his Spanish mother, God rest her soul. She
had always thought the acorn, the fruit of the solid and dependable oak tree to
be lucky. It had been the first word to come to mind when he had needed a new
name in a hurry. Acorne, with an "e" to
make the name unique, and his own.
About to shut the telescope a flash
caught his eye and Jesamiah whisked the bring-it-close upwards again. The sun
reflecting on something?
"Wait… Damn it, Daniel - I've got her!" The
sudden enthusiasm carried in an eager flurry as he shouted down to the deck, his
words greeted by a hollered cheer from the rag-tag of men who made the Mermaid's
crew.
Even the usually dour-faced Malachias Taylor managed a smile.
"Probably a slaver," he muttered, "but we'll set all sail an' pay her a visit."
His gap-toothed smile broadened into a grin. "She might be wantin' company, eh
lads?"
Aye she might, but not the sort of company the Mermaid would be
offering. Respectable traders and East India merchantmen did not care for
pirates.
Half an hour. Three-quarters. The sand trickled through the
half-hour glass as if it were sticky with tar, and although the Mermaid was
under full sail the distance between the two ships seemed to take an
interminable time to lessen. Each man was trying to pretend he did not care
whether they were on to a possible Prize or not, but for all that, finding a
variety of excuses to be up on deck or clambering about the rigging. In the end
Jesamiah put a stop to it, cursing them for the dregs they were.
"Looking
ain't going to bring us closer to a Chase any the quicker!" he barked, resisting
the temptation to have yet another squint through the telescope for himself.
"Cease this 'opping about as if you've an army of ants crawling up yer
backsides! We stay on this course and make out we're minding our own business.
We ain't interested in her, savvy?" All the same, he touched his gold earring
for luck.
From his high vantage point Daniel finally put them out of
their misery. "On deck there! She's a trader!" he shouted. "A dirty great, huge,
East Indiaman - God's breath, would you believe it? There's something smaller
following in her wake." He cursed again and spat chewed tobacco into the sea.
"We wait all this damned time, then get two Chases at once!"
The Captain
climbed aloft himself, a satisfied smile spread over his weatherworn face as he
lifted the telescope to his eye. The Indiaman must have been keeping lookout
too, for as he watched she showed her identity, the tri-coloured Dutch ensign
clearly hoisted to her main mast. Britain was not at war with the Dutch. A minor
fact which did not perturb Taylor in the slightest.
Privateering during
periods of declared war was legal, providing the captain carried a Letter of
Marque giving him government permission to harass enemy ships. Naturally,
Captain Taylor possessed his formal letter, and naturally, he preyed on any
Spanish or French enemy ship daring to show a sail over the horizon. He saw no
reason to ignore everything else also coming within range of his cannon though,
British or Dutch ships included. Now that was not privateering, but piracy - a
crime punished by the death penalty of hanging.
"Show British colours,
let her think we're friendly," he called down. He winked at Daniel. "We take the
trader, put a scratch crew aboard then think about chasing after the other one
as well, eh? What say you, young Wickersley?"
Daniel grinned a half-moon
smile at Taylor, a fairer, more profitable captain than his previous one aboard
an English Royal Navy frigate. "Aye sir, sounds good t'me!"
Jesamiah was
waiting for orders, fingers curled loosely around the hilt of a cutlass slung
from a leather baldric worn aslant across his faded waistcoat, the strap
concealing a rough-patched, blood-stained hole where some while ago a pistol's
lead shot had penetrated. He wore canvas breeches as soft and comfortable as
moleskin, knee-high boots and a cotton shirt that had once been white but was
now a dirty grey. One cuff was beginning to fray into a ragged edge. He stood,
his other hand fiddling with his blue ribbons, legs straddled, balancing against
the rise and fall of the ship.
Taylor slid, hand over hand down the
backstay; watching him Jesamiah ran his finger and thumb across the moustache
trailing each side of his mouth into a beard trimmed close along his jaw. He
lifted his chin slightly as Taylor's feet touched the deck. The Captain nodded
at his second-in-command.
"If you please, Mr. Acorne."
Acknowledging, Jesamiah paused, knowing the crew of eighty rogues were
set to jump at his command. He held them a moment… "All hands! Clear for
action!"
A whoop of delight, a scuffing patter of bare feet on the
sun-hot deck, the tarred caulking sticky between the boards, the men scattering
in various directions to ready the ship for fighting. A task they could do day
or night, drunk or sober.
As captain of a pirate ship Taylor only held
unquestionable command when it came to the engagement of an enemy ship. At other
times decisions were made by discussion and a vote. And if a captain got it
wrong too often? The crew simply elected another one.
Taylor was safe.
He was skilled at piracy, his achievements obvious by his long standing as
master of the Mermaid over a contented crew.
"Make
ready the guns," he called to Jesamiah, "but don't run out yet. Keep some of the
crew out o' sight, too. I want this Dutchman thinkin' we're a poorly manned
merchant, no threat, for as long as possible."
Jesamiah grinned, the light of easy laughter
darting into his face. He wanted that too. The easier the chase, and the fight
at the end of it, the better.
He had no fear of dying for
everyone had to go some day. Hoped when his turn came it would be quick and
painless, for it was the long, drawn-out agony he and any pirate, any man,
dreaded. But today? This fine, clear blue day was not a day for dying. This was
a day for taking treasure!
Aboard the Christina Giselle, a girl, Tiola, stood peering over the rail,
mesmerised by the foaming water churning away along the side of the hull.
Yesterday a school of dolphins had kept them company for several miles, their
silver bodies leaping and glistening as they flashed and darted. Today, it
seemed they had a different companion, one unwanted and uninvited.
Tiola. Fifteen.
Named for her grandmother, an old, old name, Tio-la, short and quick, not Ti-oh
-la as some, wrongly, said. She was slim and not very tall; a tumble of
midnight-black hair, with eyes as dark. Her features were fine, almost delicate,
her mother used to jest she was a fairy child. She was, in a way.
England, Cornwall, was many miles, many weeks and many tears behind. She
would not see her home or brothers again. Nor her mother. Mother was already in
the next world, gone to God, except as the mob had jeered while she hanged, they
had shouted that a woman who plunged a knife into the heart of her own husband
was of the Devil's breeding. From there it had been an easy step for someone to
shout "witch" and for the blood-fever of superstition to spread. Had it not been
for one of her elder brothers hurrying her to safety, Tiola would also have been
lynched. Her father's blood had been spattered on her clothes too.
The
irony? It was not Mother who was the witch.
Tiola's guardian, Jenna
Pendeen, shielded her eyes against the glare of the sun, peered at the
approaching vessel. "Is it not a British flag she flies? Surely, she is of no
threat to us?"
Behind her the Dutchman, Captain van Noord, shrugged. "I
grant she may be British, Madam," he proclaimed in perfect English, "but if that
is all she is, then I am the King of Spain!" His manner was easy and confident;
neatly dressed and polite he roamed the decks of his ship with hands clasped
behind his back, his darting eyes missing nothing. Rightly, he took pride in the
sleek vessel he commanded.
Realising what he meant Jenna squeaked alarm. "You
suspect her to be a pirate?" Her hand jerked to her throat. "Are we in
danger?"
The captain offered a polite bow. "Ah no, Mistress, I do not
suspect them to be pirates, I am certain of it. From experience, I know her crew
for what they are; rogues and thieves. Degenerates who deserve to kick from the
gallows. As no doubt they shall one day."
Tiola said nothing. No one
deserved to hang, it was a wicked death. Only if the victim had friends or
relatives to act as hangers on, to add their weight to the jerking torso, was
the slow strangulation hastened to its gruesome end.
"Ought we not show
more speed?" Jenna asked nervously, glancing up at the billow of the sails. She
fluttered her hand at Tiola. "You understand, my concern is for my ward Miss
Oldstagh, not for myself. I promised her dying mother I would take care of her.
In the hands of pirates I dread to think what indecencies she may suffer."
Jenna, unable to do anything to save her beloved mistress had
transferred her devotion and duty to the only daughter instead. Someone had to
accompany the child she had insisted, she could not leave England, flee for her
life, alone.
"It would be interesting to meet a pirate," Tiola announced,
turning to smile at van Noord. "Do they all have eye patches and gold
teeth?"
The Captain smiled at her naive innocence. "Alas child, the
pirates I have had the misfortune to cross a course with, have all been
dirt-grimed drunkards with black, foul teeth and even fouler language and
manners."
Jenna drew in her breath, horrified.
"You have my word,
dear lady, they will not be setting foot upon this ship." Van Noord half saluted
his two passengers and strolled astern, issuing calm, unhurried orders as he
went.
Tiola linked her arm through
Jenna's. "He knows what he is doing, we must trust him."
The older woman snorted. For all he was a gentleman,
through most of her forty years of life she had never found a reason to trust a
man.
Almost leisurely, the Dutch crew were reducing the spread of canvas
to fighting sail. A ship had to be balanced, the height of her masts to the
length and weight of her hull. Full sail would give them speed but not
manoeuvrability. And in a fight, it was being able to turn that counted. That,
and the power of her guns and the efficiency of her gunners.
Excitement
was shivering down Tiola's spine. Real pirates! All the stories she had read of
daring adventures: Sir Francis Drake and his expeditions against the Spanish;
Captain Morgan's famous sacking of Panama and Portobello. William Dampier,
whose exploits had led him to sail twice around the seas of the world, and who
was even now on a third journey. And Captain William Kidd, whose pirate bones
had bleached from where they dangled on the gallows at London's Wapping docks.
They had pushed him off from the wagon twice. The first time the rope had
snapped and he had tumbled, shaken but unharmed, to the mud of the low-tide. The
misfortune had not served him well for they tied another noose and pushed him
off again. To the end he had screamed his innocence, claiming he was a privateer
with a royal commission, not the scoundrel of a pirate.
Tiola shivered
again. She was not afraid, the child she was had too much liking for the romance
of adventure, and the ageless woman, the part of her that carried the inherited
gift of Craft passed down through alternate generations, grandmother to
granddaughter, was not afraid of anything. Aside, Captain van Noord knew exactly
what he was doing.
Equally however, these men rapidly closing on the
Christina Giselle, appeared to be as competent in their trade.
"Sea Witch" by Helen Hollick