Greenbeard (9781935259220) (15 page)

“Iffen yez wishes to help me give me some rum, you lubbers,” the First Mate pleaded.

“I'm afraid, Mr Feet, that alcohol is presently forbidden to you,” said Frank Benjamin solemnly, “as it is stimulating to the brain, and yours is concussed, or bruised. It would ease the pain for a little, but then a hangover would set in and you would be in agony. Drink plenty of warm tea and try and sleep.”

“He should ‘ave a draught, perhaps?” pondered Bill.

“It can do no harm to exhibit a little bark and steel,” said Frank Benjamin, “but no purgatives of any sort. No rhubarb powder.”

Bulbous Bill departed to the galley. Frank Benjamin squatted down next to the bunk.

“Your friend has treated you with skill,” he said quietly. “He has cleaned your wound with a cotton swab soaked in clean brine, then he has stitched up your skull as neat as a Jermyn Street bootmaker. The king's own surgeon could not have done better, but he has an enthusiasm for draughts and potions. In your case these will do little good, but no harm either, so I ask you to accept them as tokens of his regard for you, as his wishes for your speedy recovery. I will restrain him if he wishes to dose you too liberally. The pain in your head will lessen in a day or two, and we have no opium, so I must ask you to be patient and endure it. After that your recovery should be progressive, but you will be prone to occasional
headaches for a time.”

“Arr! How long be a time?” moaned the First Mate.

“Weeks, maybe months, but they will stop eventually.”

 

 

Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges paced his quarterdeck, dressed in the fine powder-blue uniform of a
kapitein van schip
of the Dutch East India Company, his beard a rich boot-polish brown. The wind was steady and fresh and the pirate frigate
Ark de Triomphe
, disguised as the armed merchantman
Groot Ombeschaamheid
, was making seven knots, spray occasionally flying over the leeward taffrail. The day was fine, the sky blue with a few small puffy clouds, the noonday sun warm rather than hot, now that the ship was sailing northerly, away from Gibraltar and the Pillars of Hercules.

Bulbous Bill and Mr Benjamin joined him on the quarterdeck, discussing the velocity of sound.

“It was indeed astute of you to calculate it so, Mr Bucephalus,” said Mr Benjamin, “but I am afraid that you are not the first. That estimable Frenchie Mersenne -
la pére
Mersenne, as I should say - has it in his book
Traité de l'harmonie universelle
, and applies it to a theory of music, the wily old cove.”

The Captain had been listening.

“Newton mentions the velocity of sound in his
Principia Mathematica
, but as an ideal to be calculated from the elasticity of the air, not as a quantity to be measured. Yet you are in good company, Bill. The ancient Greek fellows had no cannons, or games of cricket even, did not perceive the tardiness of the report after the flash, and so expressed no opinion on the matter.”

“The Greeks, wonderful fellows though they were, are not to be entirely trusted on many subjects,” said Mr Benjamin. “There is a fine examination of this in the
Pseudodoxia Epidemica
of Thomas Browne. Are you familiar with the work?”

“Indeed! The
Pseudodoxia Epidemica
, or ‘enquiries into very many received tenets and commonly presumed truths'. I am a great admirer of Browne,” said the Captain. “The
Pseudodoxia
brushes away old wives' tales as though it were a besom sweeping dry leaves. Some wags call it the
Vulgar Errors
, mistranslating the Latin. I have it in my cabin. A sixth-printing, bound in varnished canvas against the sea airs.”

Mr Benjamin expressed a desire to consult the book; his own copy was in his house in Virginia, a treasured volume. Captain Greybagges and Mr Benjamin explored their mutual regard for Sir Thomas Browne. His wit! His elegant language! His extensive learning; did he not have the best library in England? Not the largest, maybe, but surely the most well-chosen!

Bulbous Bill Bucephalus ceased to listen. The ship took his attention for a while, and then they were talking of things of which he knew nothing. What do I know of latitudinarianism or urn-burials? thought Bill, I am pleased I was right about the velocity of sound, even though that Froggie priest thought of it first. He shouted to a foremast jack to tighten that sheet, you lubber! and thought of the First Mate; he sleeps now, and that is good. There is a small chop, but the barky rides it well, so he will not be unduly disturbed even though we are making a good rate. John Spratt is doing well as his stand-in, but he lacks authority over his messmates and does not wish to acquire it, for Izzie will recover and then they will be his mess-mates again.

When Bulbous Bill turned around again Captain Greybagges and Frank Benjamin had gone below.

 

 

“I remembered the inspiring words of Sir Thomas Browne when I was a prisoner in Barbary,” said Mr Benjamin. “He wrote, ‘rest not in an ovation, but a triumph over thy passions; chain up the unruly legion of thy breast; behold thy trophies within thee, not without thee: lead thine own captivity captive, and be Cæsar unto thy self', which was good advice at the time.”

“I am sorry that Suleyman Reis had you questioned, Mr Benjamin,” said Captain Greybagges. “I offered too much for your freedom, in order to save haggling, and that must have stimulated his curiosity. Will you have more wine?”

“Indeed I will, and thank you. The bearded fellow in the big turban was quite insistent, but I had no notion of who you were, let alone why you should wish to purchase my release. I am deeply grateful that I am freed, however, and drinking a glass of this excellent Madeira with you. May I have another of these little pastries? They are very good.”

Captain Greybagges passed the plate with a smile.

“You seem lacking in curiosity yourself, Mr Benjamin. Do you not wish to
know why I paid that rogue eight hundred guineas in gold for your liberty?”

Frank Benjamin brushed crumbs from his waistcoat, and sipped the sweet wine.

“I feel sure that you will tell me in due course,” he said, “but if I were to hazard a guess I would say it was my compressed-air cannon.”

Captain Greybagges looked startled.

“A gun worked by mere air? Is such a thing possible?”

“Indeed. Air is reduced in volume by means of a pump, then allowed to expand again in the barrel of a gun, thus discharging a ball in the same fashion as the expanding fire of gunpowder.”

“You have constructed such a weapon?”

“Yes, a small model, firing balls the size of peas, but I confess there were problems. The flasks into which the air was compressed exhibited a sad propensity for bursting explosively.”

“What advantages does such an engine have?”

“No smoke, and a smaller noise. I am not sure about the noise, though. If an air-cannon could be made with the same power as gunpowder I suspect it would sound just as loud. Such a cannon might be made to repeat-fire reliably and quickly -
Pom! Pom! Pom!
- but that is only a notion, and not yet tested.”

Captain Greybagges got up and walked to the stern-windows of the Great Cabin, the slight roll and pitch of the ship unnoticed.

“Why do you think that I would require a compressed-air cannon?”

“Because all men are fascinated by engines of destruction, of course! I said nothing to the corsairs, not even when they beat me, because otherwise I would be there still. I gambled that they would know nothing of it, being in Barbary. However, you, Captain, speak English well and have lately been in the waters of the Americas, so you may have heard a rumour, if some of my friends or workmen in Virginia have been indiscreet. Also, you are no Hollander, yet you masquerade as one, so I might rationally suspect you of representing some foreign power who wishes to acquire my knowledge for the purposes of aggressive war.”

“Be at ease, I do not wish to build a compressed-air cannon,” said Captain Greybagges, “or to encourage warfare between nations in any way, and I do not act as agent for any potentate or cabal. I find the notion of confining air in flasks very interesting, though. It may solve a problem for me. If you would tell me more
of this I should be in your debt, but it is not the reason that I ransomed you. I wish you to tell me your knowledge of lightning-rods.”

 

 

Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo and Torvald Coalbiter were in the sick-bay, sitting with Israel Feet, to give him tea and biscuits and to distract him from the pain of his head-wound.

“That be a prodigious great razor, an' you may drown me else, wi' a curse,” whispered the First Mate.

Blue Peter replaced the enormous razor in its velvet-lined box. He had been recounting the tale of how the Captain had out-thought Ali the Barber, as the First Mate had been below at the time, waiting for the order to lead the armed pirates on deck.

“He be a sharp one, the Cap'n, and you may lay to that, wi' a curse,” whispered Israel Feet.

“The beard did not like the razor, I expect,” said Torvald Coalbiter, “and it is a lucky beard, a beard with a witch-charm upon it.”

“Why do you say that?” said Blue Peter.

“Back in Norðragøta my father's mother is a witch. She talks to whales and she can call the fishes with an iron fry-pan and a piece of coal.”

“How the bugger does she do that?” said Israel Feet.

“She bangs the coal on the fry-pan and shouts ‘fish! fish! come here you bloody fish!' and the fish usually come. She says it is because they are curious.”

“Does she put charms on beards, then?” said Blue Peter.

“No, not that I remember, but she will put charms on most things, if you ask her nicely and give her money. She charmed my boots so they would take me home again, and charmed my knife so that I would not drop it. See? It has the lucky knotted string on its hilt. I tie the lucky string to my wrist when I use the knife. So long as the lucky string is tied to my wrist I will never drop the knife.”

Blue Peter and Israel Feet considered this in silence for a while.

“How did you come by your name, Coalbiter?” asked Blue Peter eventually.

“It is from a forebear, a long time ago. My father's father's father, maybe even longer. He had a cousin, a
birsarka
, who was called ‘the Foebiter' because he was so mad in battle that he would bite and kick at his enemies even after they were dead.
My ancestor preferred to stay by his own hearth, so his cousin mocked him and called him ‘the Coalbiter'. He had the last laugh, though, as the Foebiter and all of his men went away a-viking and were lost at sea, and then my ancestor became the
jarl
and had sons with all their wives.”

“And yet you went to sea despite your ancestor's tale?” said Blue Peter.

“The Coalbiter was a great sailor, it is told, and no coward. He was warming himself by his fire when when the weather was too bad to venture to sea, and by his fire when battles were lost, not when they were won. His great power was to know when to sail or to fight and when to sit quietly by his own hearth with his dogs at his feet. Anyway, those
birsarkas
were foolish men. They would eat the fly-mushroom and drink mead before battle until they were in a blind fury, then howl like wolves and tear their shirts off and gash their chests. Very frightening to farm-boys, but not so frightening to seasoned warriors, I think, which is why there are no
birsarkas
left now. The sea is not frightened by howling and chest-beating either, but it respects cunning and a knowledge of its ways. So I am glad to be at sea with the Captain. I think I would be less happy to be at sea with Blackbeard Teach, for he is alike to the Foebiter and mistakes recklessness for fearlessness and madness for cunning.”

“Har! You be in the right there, shipmate, wi' a wannion!” said Israel Feet, forgetting to whisper piteously, “but don't be telling Captain Teach that to his face, har-har!”

“Tell me, Torvald,” said Blue Peter, “what did the whales say to your grandmother, when she spoke with them?”

“Well, she used to talk to the whales right enough, in the late summer when they would come and sport off the north headland, but I am not sure if they ever said anything to her in reply.”

“We must let Izzie sleep some more,” said Blue Peter. “Tomorrow, Izzie, you can go on deck and get some fresh air, then you will soon be right as ninepence.”

 

 

In the Great Cabin Mr Benjamin and Captain Greybagges had discussed lightning-rods and their peculiarities - and was it not true that the excellent Sir Thomas Browne had coined the word
electrick
to describe the mysterious fluid? Was there nothing that his mighty intellect had not mused upon? - and they had
drunk most of the bottle of Madeira and eaten all of the pastries. The evening twilight blue'd the tall windows of the stateroom, earlier now as the ship's latitude grew ever more northerly, and Captain Greybagges lit the oil-lamps with a spill from the candle-stub they had been using to light their pipes.

“Of course, Captain,” continued Mr Benjamin, “I had the advantage of a mechanical education. My father was a blacksmith and farrier, my uncles on either side a clockmaker and a gunsmith, so I was apprenticed to all three, one could say. Even so, I might still have followed in my father's footsteps and worked a forge if my mother's cousin Nathaniel had not been a printer. He was a fine typesetter, but all thumbs when it came to a mechanism, so as a boy I was often sent to help him work his press. At times he would give me proof-reading to do, and so I learned not only good English but also the rudiments, at least, of Latin and Greek, and German, too, there being a number of Hanoverians in Virginia at that time. The combination of manual skills and book-learning made a productive ground in which new ideas might grow and bloom. I have been lucky in that, and may stake no claim to genius, although I enjoy your generous compliments, Captain!” He raised his glass and sipped a little Madeira.