The Pirates and the Nightmaker (23 page)

I sighed. It seemed that my life from now on would be a game of tag that would only end once I found (where? how?) another Sensitive who could be persuaded to exchange places with me.

Captain Bass then turned back to Daniel Flynn, still manning the wheel.

High above the scarecrow sails flapped and shredded.

‘Daniel!’ cried Captain Bass. ‘Where are we now?’

Mr Flynn closed his eyes, lifted his head, and once again did his imitation of a basset hound.

‘I’d say we are just off the coast of Yorkshire, Captain,’ he said. ‘Whitby, to be precise!’

‘Correct!’ cried Captain Bass.

Whitby.

How that name tolled for me. It was in the seas off Whitby Town that my poor dear father had been lost all those years ago when I was little. Perhaps not far from here, perhaps in these very waters, steely-grey, white-capped and unforgiving. I gazed about me and felt a surge of grief.

Seeing my distress, Captain Bass asked, ‘What ails thee, little Loblolly Boy?’

I told him, and he looked away, staring over the seas. ‘The oceans are greedy,’ he said. ‘They take their own as often as not and don’t give them back.’

‘Like my father,’ I said.

‘But then you offered yourself?’

I thought about how I had joined the
Firefly
and how pleased and proud I had been. Of course, I wanted to follow Admiral Vernon, but part of me, too, wanted to follow in my father’s and Uncle Jack’s footsteps. At no time had I felt I was not somehow destined for the sea, not even when I discovered I was to be a lowly loblolly boy under a drunken master.

‘It must be in my blood,’ I said.

‘Perhaps it is,’ said Captain Bass. Then he put his great hands on my shoulders. ‘Fly away now, little Loblolly Boy. I trust you will find your true destiny. The sea, as you have said, is in your blood and I imagine your destiny will encompass the sea. Fly away now, and may we never meet again.’

It seemed an odd thing to say, but I guessed what he meant. It was his way of wishing me well. I turned to the wheel and Mr Flynn half-raised his hand and gave me a half-wave. I had to smile. He seemed embarrassed still and his funny little wave was his way of saying thank you for not telling the captain how he had really sold the astrolabe to Don Scapino. It amused me, too, that he believed Captain Bass would not know this.

I waved back and then gave Captain Bass a small smile as he released my shoulders. Without further ado I leapt to the air and climbed high, high above the ragged sails of the
Astrolabe.

Mr Flynn had been correct. To the west the coastline of England fronted the ocean. I glanced down again for a last glimpse of the
Astrolabe
before I flew to the shore, but I was already too late: the spectre barque had gone. There was nothing below but a chopped and broken expanse of green-grey water.

I flew swiftly towards land. Before long the coast sorted
itself into cliffs and inlets. There was a little red-roofed town with tall-masted ships inside the moles of a harbour at the mouth of a river. To my south on a plain above the sea there was a great structure: a castle perhaps or a ruined abbey.

If Mr Flynn had been right, this must be Whitby.

I descended into the town itself. It all looked so substantial after the Cove: houses of stone and brick. I dropped right down into a street by the river and the bridge about which most of the town clustered. The river broadened towards the sea and further down the vessels were moored almost, it seemed, hard against the street.

My father would have known this place, walked on these cobbles.

Filled with rather wistful thoughts, I wandered up and down, but was drawn finally to the mooring place. With a start I saw how the first vessel was laden with coal, and I guessed that on such a boat from Newcastle bound for London my father would have worked.

So heavy did these thoughts press upon me, I suddenly needed to leave the town and fly further into the country, away from stone houses, stone bridges and coal cats.

As I rose into the air and circled about the ruined abbey, I wondered why the
Astrolabe
should have delivered me here of all places.

Was this completely accidental? Would Captain Bass, who could read my feelings, read my very thoughts, have been so careless as to drop me at any random place?

The thought lightened my spirits considerably.

There had been something quite definitive in the captain’s farewell.

It was not simply a wish that we would not meet again, it was the knowledge that we wouldn’t. Captain Bass often used the word destiny. Was it my destiny to meet the person I would exchange with hereabouts? Did Captain Bass know this?

Once again I saw his grave all-knowing face, and I suddenly realised that Captain Bass did know this.

I turned from the abbey and flew further inland where the coastal plain atop the cliffs gave way to rolling downs and, beyond these, higher hills. There were villages here and there, stone churches with steeples. I dropped lower so that I could look out for people: harvesters working in the fields, a miller taking sacks from his mill to a waiting cart, gossips sitting in the shade of an elm outside a thatched inn.

I don’t know why I felt a tingle of recognition when I saw the lad walking along a pathway towards a village a mile or so distant. I hovered above him for a while and then dropped down beside the hedgerow to wait, sitting on an ancient stump, for his arrival.

I must have misjudged the distance, for he seemed to take quite a while. When he did appear, I could see the reason that was he was taking his time. He was dawdling, dragging his feet. There was nothing jaunty in his step, no whistling or happy stride, indeed he seemed quite miserable.

Of course all this changed when he saw me.

For there was nothing more certain than that he could see me.

If anything, his astonishment was even greater than that of Sophie Blade.

He stopped mid-stride and froze for several seconds. His jaw fell and he dropped his bundle and raised his hands in the air.

When I saw that he was almost about to turn and flee back in the direction he’d come from I cried, ‘Stay! Stay! You must stay!’

My shout and his reaction demonstrated that he could hear me as well.

He had already turned about, but at my desperate cry he turned back and looked again at me with a mixture of fear and wonder.

‘What are you?’ he whispered.

‘Nothing that will harm you,’ I said.

‘Are they wings?’ he asked, pointing.

‘They are,’ I said, ‘they allow me to fly.’

‘Fly?’

I nodded. ‘Oh, yes.’ Remembering the captain’s telling me that I should exchange with somebody who really wanted to exchange, I added a little craftily, ‘And it’s wonderful.’

‘Can you really fly?’

‘Should I show you?’

The boy’s fear seemed to be dissipating as his fascination in my being able to fly grew. ‘Please,’ he said.

I leapt into the air and spread my wings. I found an updraught and soared higher and higher and then I wheeled around and keeping my wings steady glided for a time as a gull would glide until, not wanting to stay away from my
new acquaintance too long, I turned again and raised my wings and dropped to the ground once more.

If anything, his astonishment was even greater.

‘You can fly …’

‘I can.’

‘Are you an angel?’ This was the question Sophie Blade had asked.

I shook my head. ‘No, no angel.’

‘A ghost or ghoulie?’

I laughed. ‘Not one of those either.’

‘What are ye?’

‘I’m a loblolly boy.’

He looked confused. ‘I’ve never heard of a loblolly boy,’ he said.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I was a loblolly boy before I was changed.’

‘Before you were changed? What were you before?’

‘A boy, such as yourself, on a ship.’

He tried to take all of this in. ‘What do people say when they see you?’

‘They don’t see me. To most people I’m invisible.’

‘Invisible?’

I nodded. ‘You’re almost the only ordinary person who has ever been able to see me. There was a girl once …’ I thought of Sophie so far away. Recovering, I added, ‘But nobody else.’

I could see the boy thinking about this. He was tall for his age and raw-boned. I guessed he was a country boy as he had a sun-darkened skin and fair bleached hair that suggested work in the fields.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Jimmy,’ he said, ‘or James to be strict.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Nowhere right now,’ he said. ‘My father has found me a place in a shop in Staithes. I’m travelling there now.’

‘Staithes?’

‘I’ve not been there. It’s on the coast, not far from Whitby. The farm is back yonder, near Great Ayton.’

His face looked bleak and I sensed he was unhappy. ‘You’d rather be back home?’ I asked.

He turned to me, his face ragged with resentment. ‘I don’t want to be shut up in a shop in a tiny place. It’d be like a prison.’

‘You don’t have to,’ I said carefully.

He had been so passionate that I felt brave enough to make the suggestion.

The boy, Jimmy, looked at me. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It would be possible to exchange,’ I said.

‘Exchange?’

I nodded. ‘I could be you and go to the shop in Staithes, and you could be me, the Loblolly Boy. You could fly.’

He stared at me in disbelief. Then a slow smile of possibility spread across his face. He laid his bundle down and said, ‘But how?’

That stopped me. Captain Bass had omitted to tell me that. I had no idea how to bring about an exchange. Despair swept through me. I had found, so soon after leaving the
Astrolabe,
a boy keen to change places with me and I did not know how to do it. Did I, I thought, stare into his eyes as
Mr Wicker had stared into mine? What did I do?

Meanwhile, the boy had clearly made up his mind.

‘I’ll exchange with you,’ he said.

Then he reached for my hand as if to seal the deal.

As our hands gripped in a warm handshake, there was a sudden blue flash, and momentarily the world was an incandescent green. So bright was the light I squeezed my eyes shut.

When I opened them again I saw before me a figure in filmy green garments stroking his arms in disbelief. As I must have done all that time ago he glanced at either side to stare in wonder at the great green wings behind him.

An amazed smile spread across his face.

‘It worked!’ he cried. ‘I’m a loblolly boy!’

At the same time, I had been looking at my own new garb. A homespun shirt and serge jacket, serge trousers and woollen hose and countryman’s sturdy laced boots. I bent down to pick up the staff Jimmy had been holding.

‘How do I fly, though?’ he asked.

‘You don’t need lessons,’ I told him. ‘You’ll find it as easy as breathing.’

‘But …’

‘Just jump,’ I said. ‘It’ll happen.’

He gave me another grin and jumped.

Immediately his wings took hold, stretched and moved easily back and forth, up and down. He rose higher and higher. As I watched his graceful arc and turn I had a pang of regret, but only for a moment, as I felt the warm summer breeze and the honey-scent of the mayflowers in the hedgerow.

There was a beauty in the landscape I would never forget. The rolling countryside, the pathway I was on that led to the village. What was it? Beyond the hedgerow, the sound of a skylark. I looked for it, expecting to see it hovering there, but my eyes were caught by the loblolly boy, the newly minted loblolly boy, riding the air in an ecstasy of freedom.

I waved at him and somehow he must have seen me, far below, waving, and he swooped down again, lifting his wings to break his flight just before he dropped light-footed before me.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked, his eyes shining.

I reassured him at once.

‘But where am I going?’ I asked.

‘To Staithes,’ he said. ‘I’m told it’s on the coast. It must be ten, maybe twelve miles.’

‘Who should I ask for?’

‘Mr Sanderson,’ he said. ‘He’s a haberdasher.’

I could sense that the loblolly boy was anxious to be away, to fly far from any mention of Mr Sanderson, of haberdashery or of the village of Staithes.

However, I suddenly realised he had yet to answer my most pressing question. ‘But what’s your name?’ I asked him.

‘I told you, Jimmy,’ he said. ‘James.’

‘But you didn’t tell me your last name.’

‘Oh,’ he said, already hovering several feet above me. ‘Of course! It’s Cook, James Cook.’

And with a final wave, he left me on the path and climbed higher and higher, winging into the violet distance of the late afternoon until he disappeared.

Before I reached down to pick up the bundle, my bundle now, I patted the pockets of my jacket. I withdrew something bulky and found a handkerchief wrapped about a slab of bread wrapped in turn about a thick slice of cheese. I held it lovingly for a moment before sinking my teeth into it.

I had discovered heaven.

This bread and cheese was the first thing I had eaten since some weevily hard tack on the
Firefly
the evening before we were attacked and a grudging share of biscuit on the jolly-boat.

Munching still, I lifted the bundle, seized my stick and started the long walk to Staithes.

I was human again. My name was James Cook.

I had no intention of being a haberdasher for the rest of my life.

How could I?

I who had seen islands spread beneath me and coastlines looking as if they had been inked on paper, picked out like a map.

I would draw maps, charts. I would make my way sooner or later to Whitby and learn seamanship.

I would join the navy and I would one day map the world.