Tales of Terror from the Black Ship (14 page)

‘Look at you, you filthy oaf,’ he said. ‘Which one of you is it anyway?’

‘Peter, sir,’ said Ben. ‘I mean, Ben, sir.’

‘Are you trying to be clever, boy?’ said the captain.

‘No, sir,’ said Ben.

Ben went below. Peter’s hammock was empty. Ben climbed into his, taking a knife with him just in case. He tried to stay awake but exhaustion got the better of him and he fell asleep, waking what seemed like minutes later (but was in fact hours), panicked and confused.

There was something wrong with his hammock. At first he thought that he was lying in his own blood, but he soon realised that it was not blood at all. His hammock was filled with mud – wet, stinking marsh mud.

Ben climbed out of the hammock and went up on deck as dawn broke over the cold North Sea, staggering out into the half-light, nauseous and dazed. Bemused faces stared back at him. The captain strode over, looking him up and down as if he could not quite believe his eyes as mud dripped from Ben’s clothes.

‘Get that mud cleaned off and swab the deck,’ he said. ‘And do a good job or I’ll throw you
and
your brother overboard.’

‘Did the quartermaster not tell you, then, sir?’ said Ben.

The captain had already started to walk away and now turned back to face him.

‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘Your little nonsense about your brother running off home. He did mention it, yes.’

‘But, sir,’ said Ben, ‘I swear –’

‘You’d swear just about anything with the right encouragement, I dare say,’ said the captain, spitting on the deck at Ben’s feet. ‘But whatever joke you’re having with Tubbs, don’t play the same trick on me, for I saw your brother with my own eyes not five minutes ago.’

With that, the captain turned on his heels and strode off, leaving Ben staring after him, a cold hand grabbing his heart and squeezing tight. Peter had escaped somehow. He had escaped the marsh and the customs men – though God alone knew how – and had returned to the ship with revenge in his blood. It must have been him that put the mud in Ben’s hammock. One thing was for certain: he could not sit and wait for the marlinspike that would no doubt be harpooning his gullet that day or the next.

Ben searched the ship for his brother, his mind buzzing like a beehive. How had Peter dragged himself out of the creek? He must have found a boat and stolen it and made his way back to the ship. And now Peter was going to kill him as soon as he got the chance, Ben was sure of it.

But however hard he searched he saw no sign of his brother. Perhaps the captain – who everyone knew was fond of a drink – was mistaken. He hoped so. Ben swabbed the deck as he was told, looking about him for any sign of Peter as the ship set sail for Holland.

There was no sign of Peter on deck, below or above it. Then Ben noticed that there were footprints striding right across the deck he had just worked hard to clean.

How could it be? How, when they were now miles from the coast, could someone leave a trail of mud like this?

‘I thought I told you to get this clean,’ said the captain, walking past.

‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Ben. Peter was trying to scare him. He was on the ship; Ben could sense him. Somehow he had got himself out of that bog and back on board.

Ben spent the rest of the morning looking over his shoulder, twitching and starting at every splash and rope creak. At last he glimpsed the familiar figure of his brother walking towards the stern of the ship. He ran to confront him, tripping over a pail of water and barging past two of his crewmates, who cursed him as he stood looking at empty space, his brother having seemingly vanished into thin air.

This was repeated throughout the rest of the day. Ben caught a flash of Peter climbing down into the hold, but when he got there the hold was empty. He saw him standing among a group of sailors, but when the men parted to return to work, Peter was gone.

‘Come on,’ said the captain, slapping him on the arm and making him jump. ‘Do some work! Get up and have a look at the main topsail. Shadbolt thought he saw a tear.’

Ben set about climbing the rigging.

He reached the main topsail yard: the great horizontal beam across the mainmast from which hung the topsail. He always loved being high among the sails and, now, even the fear of Peter started to dissipate. He felt like a bird up there, the white sails puffed out and billowing like clouds all around him. Then he turned to see a familiar figure standing along the yard.

‘Peter . . . I just meant to teach you a lesson,’ said Ben, his speech prepared. ‘I was never going to really . . .’ His voice tailed off as he looked at his brother.

Peter was smiling at him. He was still covered from head to foot in foul-smelling mud, which trickled in slow gobbets down his face and dripped from his sodden clothes. Ben watched, horror-struck, as mud dribbled into his brother’s eyes and he did not blink.

‘For God’s sake, Peter,’ said Ben. ‘You look . . .’

‘Don’t worry,’ gurgled Peter. ‘I’m here, brother. I’ll always be here.’ His mouth widened into a dimpled grin and mud oozed horribly between his teeth and down over his chin. He opened his mouth further and the mud flooded out, pouring down his chest in an unending, glutinous stream.

Ben let go of the ropes to shield his face as Peter lurched towards him, and he fell backwards through the air, the scream dying in his throat as his head struck the deck with a sickening crack that stopped the whole ship’s crew like a musket firing.

A fall from the rigging was not unheard of, but unusual on such a calm and gentle day. And though the broken face was hard to bear, many mariners had seen worse in their time. No, what drew puzzled and nervous glances from the onlookers was the fact that they were certain they had seen only one sailor fall, and yet here were the twins lying dead, lying on their sides, their knees bent to their chests as if still in the womb. Stranger still, a great swathe of foul-smelling mud covered the bodies, mingling with the crimson blood that seeped across the deck.

*

‘What a horrible way to die,’ said Cathy when Thackeray had finished.

‘Which?’ he said with a grin. ‘In a muddy creek or falling from a ship’s mast?’

‘Either,’ said Cathy. ‘Have you ever killed a man, Thackeray?’

‘Cathy!’ I hissed. ‘What sort of question is that to ask a person?’

But I was not concerned for the impropriety of the question, but by the dread of what answer might be forthcoming. To my horror, though not my surprise, Thackeray nodded slowly.

‘I have killed,’ he said. ‘But I take no pride in it. I was on a Navy ship and those I killed, I killed in battle. And war makes murderers of us all.’

Cathy stared, wide-eyed.

‘Did you shoot them, sir?’ she said. ‘Or run them through with your sword?’

‘You’re a bloodthirsty maid, aren’t you?’ he answered with a chuckle. ‘That’s too much story-reading for you. It puts dark thoughts in your head.’

‘But it’s just so exciting.’

‘It may seem so,’ he said a little sadly.

I listened to this conversation with mounting anxiety. I had been given strict instructions to let no one in, and now I discovered I had let a self-confessed killer – Navy man or not – into our house. Even when our father did return, what guarantee was there that he would be equal to the task of dealing with Thackeray?

‘You say “
was
on a Navy ship”, Mr Thackeray,’ I said. ‘Do you serve no longer? And why then do you still wear the uniform?’

‘I sail aboard a different ship now, Ethan,’ he answered. ‘I serve a different captain.’

‘You are a deserter, then?’ I said coldly. ‘Is that why you are so mysterious?’

‘No, Ethan,’ said Thackeray. ‘I’m no deserter. And I will thank you not to accuse me twice.’

‘I thought you said it wasn’t polite to pry into Mr Thackeray’s business, Ethan,’ said Cathy.

‘No harm done, miss,’ he said with what would have passed for a warm smile in a less frigid countenance. ‘I’m a stranger in your house. Ethan has every right to be suspicious.’

‘Yet still you do not answer, I notice,’ I said. ‘Why is it then that you wear the uniform of the Royal Navy?’

Thackeray took a deep breath and sighed loudly as if running out of patience with a bothersome infant.

‘I was little more than a boy when I enlisted as a midshipman,’ he said. ‘And little more than a boy when I went into battle.’

‘It must have been horrible,’ said Cathy. ‘Were you very frightened?’

‘I’m not ashamed to say I was, Miss Cathy,’ he replied. ‘There are no fearless men in a battle. Only a liar would say different. I have seen seasoned men – fighting men – vomit with fear as the enemy sailed into range and the cannons boomed. I have seen men – good men – reduced to bloody meat.’

Once again Thackeray seemed lost in his memories. Or at least he affected the air of a man lost in memories. I was deeply mistrustful of all he said and did and I noted that none of his words went in any way to explain why it was he still wore a Navy uniform, or indeed what manner of sailor he now was.

‘Ah, look,’ said Cathy, clumsily endeavouring to change the subject. ‘The wind seems to be dying.’

‘Aye,’ said Thackeray, glancing at the window and then at me. ‘I do believe the storm is dropping off a little. Perhaps I may take my leave of you, then.’

‘No,’ said Cathy to my utter consternation. ‘It is still raining and it is still frightful. We wouldn’t hear of it, would we, Ethan?’

Thackeray smiled at me in a most disturbing way.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Of course not.’

‘And since you’re staying, Thackeray,’ said Cathy, ‘you can tell us another story.’

‘And what would you like a story about, Miss Cathy?’ he said.

‘Pirates!’ she answered without hesitation. ‘Have you ever met a pirate on your travels?’

‘Hush now, Cathy,’ I said, blushing at her foolishness. ‘How could he? The days of pirates are long gone.’

‘Well now,’ said Thackeray with an annoyingly patronising tone. ‘There’ll always be pirates, Ethan, as long as there are ships on the sea.’

‘I suppose you are right,’ I said. ‘But I meant the
real
age of pirates, sir – the age of Rackham, Kidd and Blackbeard.’

Thackeray smiled and his gold tooth winked.

‘You’re familiar with your pirates, then?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Cathy. ‘
A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates
is a special favourite of ours.’

‘You know the book, sir?’ I asked.

‘Captain Johnson’s book? Aye, I know it. A right scholarly account it is too, they say. But it is incomplete.’

‘Incomplete?’ I said.

‘Well, it must be, must it not?’ he said. ‘For there is no mention, I think I am correct in saying, of Captain Reeve.’

Cathy and I exchanged a puzzled glance.

‘Who is Captain Reeve?’ asked Cathy. ‘Was he a pirate?’

‘Only the most fearsome pirate that ever sailed Neptune’s oceans,’ said Thackeray. ‘As a matter of fact I have a tale that concerns that very person. Would you like to hear it?’

‘I am sure we would,’ said Cathy, and I nodded my agreement.

‘Very well, then,’ he said. ‘I’ll begin . . .’

The Monkey

One fine June day the
Fox
, a small brig out of Boston, Massachusetts, was intercepted on its way to Hispaniola by a vessel flying a red flag featuring a skull and a black heart.

The pirates boarded the
Fox
and herded the crew together on the weather deck. For what seemed like hours they were made to stand in the sun, their guards grinning at their discomfort as they lolled in the shade of the foresail and made a great show of studying their pistols and cutlasses.

Among the
Fox
’s crew was a boy of about thirteen – he was never sure of his birth date; a boy called Lewis Jackson. He was watching the ransacking of the ship with great interest.

A sudden hush came upon the ship, and the grinning guards lost their easy ways and stood to attention – or at least some rough, loose-limbed pirate version of attention. Slowly, out of the deepest part of the shadows, walked the man who was their leader.