Greenbeard (9781935259220) (37 page)

It took the island women three days to complete the underwater work. The crew were very impressed by their skill and determination, making their appreciation plain by small gestures of kindness when the women boarded the frigate exhausted from several hours on the ocean's floor. Miss Chumbley lost her temper several times when too many pirates crowded round the women as they were going to their cabin for raw fish, hot tea and a lie-down, and again astounded even the old pirates by her fine grasp of the technicalities of personal abuse. The air-pump never stopped its
honk-wheeze, honk-wheeze
during that time, and the Captain's prediction was proved correct as the crew started to regard it as an instrument of torture.

In the early morning of the fourth day the lifting began. The huge wooden tub had been raised already and placed on the deck. The lifting cable was reeved through the block on the sheerlegs, then through other blocks lashed to samson-posts until it came to the capstan, where sweating grunting pirates heaved, two to each capstan-bar. Extra force was applied by nipping ropes to the cable from blocks-and-tackles to the mainmast. At first the object would not move, and the winching only made the frigate heel over slowly. Captain Greybagges and Israel Feet were considering how to take a hawser from the mainmast cross-trees to an anchor off the port side to oppose the list when the frigate slowly rolled back upright again, swashing and lurching gently.

“It was stuck in the sand of the bay,” breathed the Captain thankfully. “It is not too heavy.”

“The thing be damned heavy enough, Cap'n,” said Israel Feet. “Squash me toes with a caulking-mallet if it ain't!” He indicated the masts, which still tilted noticeably to the loaded starboard side.

The lifting continued without a break. The pirates on the capstan and the blocks-and-tackles were relieved by fresh teams every half-hour. Captain Greybagges himself took a shift, as did his officers, so that all should share the brutal labour.

In the late afternoon a pale disk began to be visible through the water, its diameter about eight paces. The chatter of the crew died away until only the grunting and loud breathing of the labourers was heard. When the object started to come clear of the water idle pirates moved to the starboard rail to see.

“Stop, you lubbers!” shouted Bulbous Bill in his high-pitched voice. “Go you to the port rail, or the barky shall tilt the more! You will get to see it in time, sure enough!”

Finally the object hung clear of the water. A lenticular metal vessel with a round hole in its top two paces across with jagged shards of glass around the edges of the hole. The metal of the vessel, where it was not obscured by fronds of seaweed and other marine growths, had a dull matte surface with a slight blue-green colour to its silvery metallic shine. The bully-boys manning the longboat towed the raft of tree-trunks underneath the strange vessel, and the capstan was backed and the blocks-and-tackles were loosed to lower it gently down. The lifting teams relaxed, breathing heavily, spitting on their blistered palms.

“Har-har, me jolly buccaneers! You may look now, and satisfies yer curiosity!” roared the Captain. “Sees you what kind of little fishy we have landed ourselves today, har-har!”

The pirates eagerly went to look, those that were not busy securing the raft and its load, but there was little talk, only a bemused hush. The island women only took a brief glance, as they had already seen it underwater. Miss Chumbley shoved herself through the press of pirates to the rail, not disdaining to use a judicious elbow-jab or kick. She stared at the strange vessel with narrowed eyes and pursed lips, lost in thought.

“It is one of the extramundane saucer-craft that you told me about, is it not, Captain?” said Blue Peter in a low voice.

Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges did not answer, but smiled a small smile and nodded.

J
ack Nastyface and Jake Thackeray sat on the mizzenmast mainsail cross-trees, legs dangling twenty feet above the deck. Below them the pirate crew dispersed and went about their tasks. After a short while the air-pumps re-started their endless
honk-wheeze
,
honk-wheeze
,
honk-wheeze
on the foredeck behind and below them. The first air-pump had been joined by a second which had been brought up from the hold, an even more devilish air-pump, a high-pressure air-pump that packed yet more air into the large bronze bottles, the ones the size of cannons, after they had been part-filled by the first air-pump. It was an air-pump that would act fairly to break the back and spirit of any man. Any man who was not a stout buccaneer, of course.

“He does speak well, doesn't he?” said Jake.

“
Old Soapy Syl the Shyster
,” muttered Jack, under his breath.

“What?” said Jake.

“That's what the old pirates call him sometimes, the ones who were with him before London. You didn't hear that from me and don't you ever call him that. Not ever. I'm not allowed to call him that, really, as I was only Jack Nastyface back then, even though I was there,” said Jack Nastyface.

“But you are still Jack Nastyface, are you not?”

“I am, but if this were a ship of the Royal Navy I would not be, and you would be Jack Nastyface instead. It is the customary name for the cook's assistant.”

“Ah, but then why were you Jack Nastyface to begin with, this ship not being a Navy vessel?”

“Some of the old pirates were deserters from the Navy, so they just followed the custom notwithstanding, but many of them retired ashore at London and fellows like you joined us, and so I am stuck with Jack Nastyface for all time, I suppose.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“What is a ‘shyster'?” said Jake.

“A lawyer,” said Jack.

“And that is a bad thing?”

“Certainly. A lawyer is a man of far less honour than a pirate, which is why
you must not repeat what I just told you, and already regret telling you.”

“The Cap'n was a lawyer, then?”

“Yes, so they say. A man with a silver tongue, an artful tongue which was at the service of any who could pay his fee.”

“And the Cap'n was good at the lawyering?”

“Oh, Lord, Jake! You have just heard him, have you not? He says ‘I will tell you all, so that you may have faith in me, my fellow buccaneers!' and then he tells us nothing at all, but everyone is happy and feels that he has opened his heart to them.”

“He said were are to voyage far, farther than any freebooters have ever gone before, and that we will win a great fortune. He has hinted at this before, and indeed it do seem likely, as he has spent gold like a nabob and we have nothing yet to show for it, not even one prize, which irks the older fellows greatly. Some of them guess that we are off to plunder the Great Cham of Tartary, some reckon it to be the treasure of Prester John, others aver it must be the emperor of far Cathay and yet others speak of the legends of a land even further to the east, where the sun do rise. What say you, Jack?”

“I do not know, but that … device down there,” Jack indicated the object on the raft by the side of the
Ark de Triomphe
, “that piques my curiosity, and not in a way that brings me comfort. It has an unnatural look to it. The things that come from the distant east - the porcelain vases, the bronze urns, the painted fans and screens and such – they look foreign enough, surely, but not as strange as that. I look at it and I feel uneasy in my heart.”

The two young pirates stared down at the object. Pirates were cleaning the seaweed and barnacles from it, and the strange blue-green-tinted metal of the vessel gleamed in the early-morning light.

“Jack, do you not trust the Cap'n, then?” said Jake slowly, in an undertone.

“As sure as God is my witness, I do trust him, and would willingly risk my life and the salvation of my soul for him, for he has ever shown me the greatest kindness and forbearance, especially when I first came aboard this barky and was no more than a giddy boy, and I owe my good fortune to him entire, but I wish I knew more of his mind and of his plans.”

“Blue Peter knows something of those, I say, for he is oft-times inward and thoughtful, and yet he follows the Cap'n without question. All the others, young
pirates and old, keep to their own counsel with patience, too, and do not much discuss what they may only hazard guesses at.”

“Ah, you are right! Of course you are right! He always comes up trumps in the end, and we are all the richer for his cunning. I regret speaking now, for it may bring ill luck.” Jack Nastyface crossed himself furtively and knocked with his knuckles on the brine-pickled pitch-pine timber of the mast. “Do please forget I spoke at all, and say nothing to the others, Jake! Not to anybody!”

“Assuredly, Jack! Speak of what, pray? Ho-ho! Come on, let's to work! There are pots waiting for me to scrub, and you must knot, splice, serve and parcel until your fingers ache, and then take your turn at the cursed air-pumps, too, even if you know not the reason why!”

Jake Thackeray swung himself through the lubber's hole and climbed down the ratlines. Jack Nastyface disdained to follow him and slid down the back-stay to the deck hand-over-hand in a seamanlike manner.

 

On the raft by the frigate's side the seaweed and marine growth had been scraped from the metal vessel. It resembled two huge shallow dishes joined rim-to-rim.

“A Greek
discus
, that is what it brings to mind,” said Mr Benjamin to Loomin' Len Lummocks. “Where is the saw?”

One of Len's bully-boys brought forth a saw. It resembled a shipwright's whipsaw, which is longer than a man is tall, with wooden handles at each end for two men to cut planks from a dressed tree-trunk in a sawpit. However, instead of steel teeth the edge of this saw was set with gemstones along its length. They gleamed with rainbow colours in the sunlight.

“A king's ransom of diamonds!” Mr Benjamin shook his head ruefully. “But they shall work for us and not decorate a lady's breast, which is surely the first time such sparklers have been useful instead of merely ornamental. Set to lads! Use the
lignum-vitae
blocks to hold it steady until it bites a groove, and you!” He pointed to a young pirate, once apprenticed to a millwright, who held a tin kettle. “Dribble the oil on slowly, in a thin stream.”

Two bully-boys took up the saw and placed it against the blocks of hard wood held on the convex surface of the strange object by two more bully-boys. The young pirate poured a thread of olive oil onto the blade and the saw was pulled
back-and-forth in a smooth continuous action. After a quarter of an hour Mr Benjamin told the sawing bully-boys to change places with the bully-boys holding the saw's position with the blocks. He examined the metal surface while the sawing was halted, squinting through his
pince-nez
spectacles with furrowed brows.

“Bless me! … sorry! …
Avast, shipmates, har-har!
… The saw is biting! This will be slow work, for this strange metal is prodigious hard, but you shall prevail! With a will, my lads! With a will!”

 

Captain Greybagges watched from the quarterdeck rail, his face tense. When he heard Mr Benjamin's words he looked relieved. He shouted encouragement to the bully-boys sawing at the vessel, the glittering saw-blade moving rhythmically and relentlessly, and halloo'd to the pirates at the air-pumps as well, then went below.

In the Great Cabin the rasping rhythm of the diamond-toothed saw could be faintly heard through the open stern windows,
ssssss-ssssss-ssssss-ssssss
, faster than the laboured
honk-wheeze
of the two air-pumps, as well as the normal shouts, bangs and clatters of a fighting ship at anchor. Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges listened to the odd syncopation of the noises. Mumblin' Jake brought a tray with a pot of coffee, a jug of water with lemon slices and ice, cups, glasses and a plate of biscuits. Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo entered as Mumblin' Jake left, mumbling. He was dressed in a work-rig of an old cotton shirt and knee-britches, his calves and feet bare. He brought with him the sharp musk-tang of fresh sweat.

“You have been at the air-pump, Peter, if I may hazard a guess.” The Captain poured him coffee, but Blue Peter first took a glass of iced water and drained it in a draught, wiping his mouth with a soft “ahhh!” of pleasure.

“Indeed I have. It is best if we all share in these tedious labours, Captain. I wished to take a turn at the bejewelled saw, too, as it is the most costly saw in the entire world, but Frank waved me away. I think he does not wish Len and his boys to be put off their stroke.”

“I suppose it
is
a little like rowing, Peter, even though Frank isn't calling ‘pull-pull-pull' as the cox used to do when I was at Cambridge and training on the Cam for the annual race against Oxford, our deadly rivals in rowing as well as learning. The cox used to ride a horse, trotting along the towpath, shouting at us through a speaking-trumpet, the ass.”

Mr Benjamin joined them, dressed nearly as casually as Blue Peter, but with silk hose and stout buckled shoes. His round face beamed with satisfaction, and his eyes twinkled behind his
pince-nez
spectacles.

“Ha-ha! Coffee and biscuits! Very welcome!” He poured himself a black coffee and took a handful of biscuits.

“Does the cutting proceed well, Frank?”

“It does, Cap'n, it does. Len and his boys have got the feel of it now. How hard they must bear down on the saw, how much oil to drip, how often to stop and clear the swarf, which is the little slivers of cut metal, they can clog the teeth. They are doing so well I felt that I could leave them for a short while.” He popped another biscuit in his mouth and slurped some coffee.