Greenbeard (9781935259220) (16 page)

“You are right about the skills of the hand and eye being as illuminating as any text,” said Captain Greybagges. “As captain of a ship I am made aware of this every day. The ship would founder without continual repair, and no book can give the smith or the carpenter his art. When I was a boy I made a little boat to sail on the lake on my father's estate, and there is a great pleasure in taking wood and shaping it, making it into a vessel that draws the wind and cuts the water, a great pleasure indeed. Perhaps one day I shall have the leisure to build another.”

“The art of the boatwright is indeed profound. A cabinet-maker feels he is a fine fellow for making an inlaid
vargueño
with a secret drawer, but the boatbuilder's work must survive the battering of the seas, and has not a single straight line anywhere to put a try-square to.”

“That is the truth. If you ask a cabinet-maker to make you a more expensive box he will make it of precious woods, inlay it with ivory and put gold handles on it. Ask a boatwright to do the same and
he
will make it more watertight, giving it a barrel-top and curved sides so the planks strain against each other and stay close-fitting as in a carvel-built whaler, thus expending the extra value in its construction and not on mere ornamentation. Mr Chippendale, the ship's carpenter, has such
a sailor's chest. I shall show it to you betimes. It is surprisingly light in weight.”

“I have seen such a chest. The light weight comes from it resembling more an egg than a box. An egg-shell is made of thin friable stuff, yet when it is complete and whole it will withstand much rough treatment. A cubical egg would be a sadly weak thing.”

“And quite painful for the chicken, too!” said the Captain, and they roared with laughter.

“The last of the Madeira, Mr Benjamin?” Captain Greybagges emptied the bottle into their glasses. “The skills of the hands! I suppose that is why I respect our King Charles. I met a Guernsey man once who told me that when the King was exiled to the Channel Islands during Noll Cromwell's time he would sail a cutter from dawn to dusk, just for the joy of it, and that he could easily be master of a ship if he wasn't the king. I admired that, and I also learned that as a young prince he had insisted on being taught smithing and carpentry despite the dogged opposition of the dukes and earls who had been appointed to be his tutors, who thought such things beneath his royal dignity. They say that he is a man who enjoys his pleasures too much to be a good ruler, but I think a king who has willingly worked a forge and a bench, and who loves to sail a jolly-boat, cannot be bad. Many pirates make a pretence of being Jacobites, and toasting
the king across the water
like a parcel of drunken Scotsmen, but I do not. King Charles would maybe hang me if he should catch me, but that does not make him a bad king, merely a monarch whose wily diplomacy would sacrifice a few freebooters if that will give him peace with Spain. If there is war with Spain, then I will miraculously become a buccaneer once more, loyal and true, and not - heaven forfend! - a wicked pirate, and the King would then surely smile upon my depredations, as he has done already with Captain Morgan.”

“You freely confess to being a pirate, Captain Greybagges, and yet all my instincts are to trust you,” said Mr Benjamin. “Kings, popes and potentates are often constrained by circumstances to act in ways that are morally dubious, as you imply, and yet they are held to be the fount of order and law in this turbulent world. A pirate may be as much a creature of virtue as a king, I find. That man with the beard and turban in Barbary caused me to confront my mortality, to brace myself to face death, imprisonment or slavery with as much courage and dignity as I could muster. A barbarian, indeed, without honour or pity. You are
not such a man. You buy my freedom at much risk to yourself, and yet you say that should only earn my goodwill, and that you will pay me for my labours and deliver me safe home to Virginia in the spring. I am honoured by your courtesy and your straightforwardness, and I will gladly accept your offer.”

He held out his hand and Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges shook it solemnly. “I am pleased to have you aboard, Mr Benjamin, as one of my pirate crew. Do please call me Sylvestre, but not on the quarterdeck, as that would breach naval ettiquette.”

“Call me Frank. I drink a glass with you!”

They touched glasses and downed the last sips of the sweet Madeira wine. “Frank, I must take a turn around the deck, as it grows dark. Please do accompany me, for the appetite is stimulated by the fresh salt air, and then please do join my officers and myself for a little supper.”

 

 

The pirate frigate
Ark de Triomphe
, disguised still as the Dutch merchantman
Groot Ombeschaamheid
, cleaved a white wake thought the darkening sea into the gathering dusk. She had been heading northwest into the Atlantic to avoid lee shores and inquisitive Spaniards, but the wake was heading now northeast towards the Channel, with the prevailing southwesterly winds at her stern. The sailors hauling on the ropes were dressed in the red-and-grey
matrozenpak
slops of the Dutch East India Company, but they were singing in English - many of them in various accents, perhaps - as they hauled:

Captain Greybagges awoke at dawn as the tall windows of the Great Cabin let in a cold grey light. The ship was pitching more - a rougher sea - and rolling more - a gusting wind. A splatter of rain rattled against the stern windows. He yawned and swung his legs out of the hanging bunk, slowing its swinging with his feet on the canvas deck-cloth. He put a black coat of thick Duffel cloth on over his nightshirt, fastened its wooden toggles and went up to the quarterdeck. The ship was thumping through a moderate chop, the deck was wet and cold under his bare feet from the spray blown over the leeside taffrail. Two steersmen were at the wheel, under the watchful eye of Bulbous Bill Bucephalus, who wished the Captain a good morning and then indicated upwards with his eyes. The Captain looked up; Mr Benjamin was standing on the lower crossyard of the mizzen mast, facing sternwards into the wind, wearing only his wig, his spectacles and a pair of cotton drawers. He had tied a length of rope around his waist and the mast so that he could spread his arms wide and not fall.

“A very good morning to you, Captain!” he called down, just audible against the buffeting of the rain-filled wind.

“How long has he been up there?” asked the Captain.

“Oh, about half an hour,” said Bill.

Captain Greybagges nodded and sighed, and went below. After his head had been shaved by Mumblin' Jake, and he had washed and dressed in his piratical black clothes, he returned to the deck. Mr Benjamin was standing by the pump, waiting for two foremast jacks to rig the handles.

“Taking a seawater bath, Mr Benjamin? It sets a man up for the day! Though I must confess that I prefer to do it in warmer climes.”

“I feel it would be a grand thing to do after an air-bath, Captain, if I am not inconveniencing anybody.”

“They will tell you quick enough if you are. But what is an ‘air-bath', pray?”

“Why, a bath in the air! I have a theory that certain vapourous humours are drawn from the
corpus
by exposure to a brisk breeze, and that clothes tend to insulate one from the roborative effects of fresh air, much as they are necessary for warmth.”

“I notice that you have tied your wig and spectacles to your head with codline. Surely it would be easier to leave them off?”

“I need my eye-glasses to see, Captain, and keep my wig on that I might retain my dignity. If I may presume to ask you a question in return, why is your beard green?”

“Because I am Greenbeard the pirate, Mr Benjamin. I am not in disguise as Myneer Oplichtenaar,
kapitein van schip
. This is how I normally attire myself.”

“Ah! You are indeed a notable buccaneer, Captain Greybagges! Even a landlubber like myself has had report of you.”

“The price of such fame is that I must colour my beard with brown boot-polish and, sadly, restrain myself from writing for the broadsheets as I used to do. After your seawater bath there is breakfast in the wardroom, Mr Benjamin. I must attend to some paperwork.”

Captain Greybagges turned and addressed the crew in the rigging in a loud carrying voice.

“Listen, you swabs! There looks to be a great storm a-blowing up from aft, damn me iffen there ain't! It will be upon us before dark, so's you keeps the sails in good order betimes, keep a weather eye open and attend to Mr Bucephalus, for iffen yez don't and the storm don't tear out yez guts I surely will, and yez may lay to that, wi' a wannion! The Bay of Biscay is a graveyard for damned lubbers, but not for canny sailormen, so sets yez the sails handsomely, shipmates!”

 

The pirates had rigged the pump and fitted a stand-pipe. The Captain noted that Mr Benjamin removed his wig and spectacles before standing under the gushing gouts of cold seawater.

 

 

There was a knock at the door of the Great Cabin. “Enter, wi' a curse!” shouted Captain Greybagges, lifting his quill from the paper. Mr Benjamin looked around the door, his wig still looking slightly damp.

“Ah, Frank. Come in.”

“Captain, Sylvestre, I have a notion to demonstrate to you something of the electric fluid, if there is to be a storm with lightning, but I need the assistance of a carpenter. Is he busy?”

“I do not think so. Tell him I said to do your bidding, unless there is some pressing task which must have his immediate attention.”

“Thank you, Sylvestre. I am sorry to have disturbed you.”

 

Captain Greybagges returned to his correspondence and the comforting
scritch-scratch
of the goose-quill on foolscap. I wonder what Mr Benjamin is intending to do, he mused, as he penned a letter of instructions to be sent to a clockmaker in Dublin.

As the Captain wrote letters and dealt with the mundane paperwork of the frigate he was aware that the weather was slowly worsening. The pitch and roll of the ship increased and became more random. He had to keep things stowed in drawers rather than have them slide around the top of his desk, and he spread his feet wider to steady his seat in the chair, in case there should be a sudden lurch. This did not bother him unduly, but he wondered how Mr Benjamin was taking it. If he was working with the ship's carpenter the activity would perhaps keep his mind off any queasiness.

Mumblin' Jake came with the Captain's lunch; a doorstep-thick sandwich of bread, cheese and sliced onion, two boiled eggs, a thick wedge of pork pie with mustard, an apple and a tankard of ale. The Captain kept the tankard in his left hand on the desk's leather top and the basket of food in his lap, and was able to enjoy his repast and continue writing in between mouthfuls despite the movement of the ship. The ship was by no means troubled by the wind and waves, and made agreeable creaking noises as though it were a live creature grunting with the effort of shouldering its way through the green seas. I hope Mr Chippendale has checked the bilges, he thought, and not been distracted by whatever it is Mr Benjamin wants of him.

The storm following the
Ark de Triomphe
worsened as it drew closer. As twilight fell the waves rolled past it one after another, lifting the stern with a lurch, and the wind howled. The foremast-jacks swarmed in the rigging, trimming the canvas to catch the blow yet not burst the gasket-ropes. Some of the pirate crew donned oilskins and boots, but the more-active men on the yards could only wear shirts and pants as heavy-weather gear would hamper their freedom of movement, and freezing cold and wet are better than a fall into the churning sea. They were
relieved on a rolling-shift system so they got hot drinks and burgoo below before they became stupid from the cold, and fresher men took their place.

Jemmy Ducks was still in disgrace and was not relieved from his watch at the main foretop crosstrees, although he was well bundled up in several woollen jumpers, an oversize griego and a tarred sou'wester. Jack Nastyface had joined him in his lonely vigil out of friendship, a meaningful gesture when young Jack could have been lollygagging by the warmth of the galley stove with a mug of sweet coffee in his hand. Jemmy Ducks was resentful of his friend's sacrifice at first, it seemed to diminish his punishment, and he was aggrieved at himself for his near-calamitous dereliction of duty, but Jack Nastyface was such a well-meaning fool that soon they were arguing as of old.

“You must have heard him wrong then, you ass!” said Jemmy Ducks. “He probably wanted a barrel of beer, the mad old bugger.”

“He did not,” insisted Jack. “He
pacifically
asked for an empty barrel. I heard him clear as I hear you now.”

This was no guarantee of clarity, as the wind howled around them in their lofty perch, but Jemmy Ducks was partially convinced.

“And three fathoms of cotton cloth, the sort that is dyed for flags,” continued Jack Nastyface, “and forty fathoms of codline, and a bar-shot, and some oilcloth, and four pounds of gunpowder, and …”

“And here he comes now!” shouted Jemmy Ducks above the wind's noise, pointing down to the deck. He then felt a twinge of guilt. “I cannot look. I must keep watch on the horizon. Tell me what they are doing.” There was not much horizon to watch, as the squall-line crept closer, a mass of angry clouds, dark in the twilight and stitched with flashes of lightning. Jack Nastyface hung over the yard, to better observe the deck.