Easton (5 page)

Easton stands by Whitbourne, pointing things out and shouting in the admiral’s ear. George, next to Whitbourne, catches nothing save the wind’s insistent gusting and the squawking of gulls, which circle overhead. The
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figurehead is a great bronze painted lion, its fur like tongues of flame. Easton’s other three ships are all within sight, following in a line, their sails also pregnant with the breeze as though in mimicry of their leader.

A thin grey strip of land, a constant ridge on the horizon, is off to the west. From time to time it recedes to a dark line and is almost lost in the haze of distance. George knows this must be the vast land mass of the New World some way north of Virginia. His pulse quickens at the sight of a place so utterly huge and untouched. He wonders at the mysteries, the dangers and treasures that must lie within. What unknown animals might lurk in the vast hinterland beyond? What strange and savage people?

Easton, he notices, is spying something to the east through his glass and inviting Whitbourne to do the same. They are deep in conversation, George sees, but he cannot at first make out the object, which is obscured by a mast. He moves off to the side and then it is revealed to him. It is a single frigate, full-sailed and well-armed with a line of cannons down the side. It lists to starboard as though from swift turning and would appear to be heading east, away from Easton’s small fleet. George tries to make out the flag and is almost certain it is the red on white of the St. George’s Cross. A man in a blue tunic approaches Easton. He shouts something George cannot make out.

“Yes,” Easton cries in answer.

The man turns and screams something at the crew. The deck is suddenly a wasp nest of activity. Ropes are untied at triple speed. Men run up and down rope ladders. With the sun behind the crew members obliterating their features, they seem to George like dancing shadows, weightless in their energy and efficiency.

The sails begin to shift. With a sound like mighty thunderclaps, the wind at first sucks away, leaving the canvas sagging. Then the breeze picks up again, rippling through the newly-angled sails, finally billowing with an even fiercer strength than before. The ship turns swiftly for such a large vessel, plunging once or twice into the ocean and sprinkling foam far into the air, where it catches the sun and creates a momentary rainbow. George stares, feeling the sharp taste of salt upon his tongue. The sails flap one more time and the ship lurches forward, finding its new rhythm in pursuit of the frigate.

George notices that the men are arming themselves. Pistols, sharp boarding axes and muskets are being passed from man to man. It is a process almost miraculously well-organized. A man untying a rope takes a pistol in one hand, slips it into his leather belt without looking. Then, still untying with his free hand, he takes a musket and hands it to another man who reaches without the merest glance to see what he is receiving.

A short black man with dark grooves carved into his face appears before George and the admiral. He raises two pistols handles-first as though for them to receive. Neither makes a move. The man remains motionless, offering them the weapons.

“Sirs,” says Easton, returning to them. He shouts above the roar of the wind and this time George can hear everything. “You must take them for your own protection.” For once he is a little breathless and has every appearance of sincere concern for their well-being.

“But, sir,” yells Whitbourne, “judging from its flag, the ship you are following is a loyal British vessel. We have nothing to fear from it.”

“Admiral,” Easton persists, catching his breath once more. “We have the very same flag and yet they have chosen to flee. Is that not a sign of guilt?”

George sees that the admiral is speechless. The man standing holding the guns has not wavered in the slightest.

“Please!” Easton demands.

George knows the outcome and his hand itches to take the weapon, if for no other reason than to get the inevitable over with. There is something impossible about refusing arms for safety from a host who is taking time away from battle preparations to urge them.

Whitbourne takes his gun first. George does the same, even though the phrase “armed and aboard a pirate ship” resonates from somewhere in his memory, perhaps from a trial he once studied in military school.

“Now, sirs, go to your cabins and stay there.”

George and the admiral turn and make for their cabins. They reach a small vestibule leading to the grand complex of cabins opposite Easton’s own quarters. Once inside the little vestibule, the men catch each other’s appearance properly for the first time since the night before. The admiral’s face is blanched and drawn. His eyes have weary red ridges around them. He sighs and looks at the gun hanging from his fingers.

“Come,” he says, motioning George to his cabin.

They go through into the admiral’s cabin, a twin of George’s own in almost every detail. The admiral pulls out a delicate mahogany writing chair and gestures George to sit, which he does. Whitbourne then sits on the end of his carefully made bed.

“So,” he sighs, letting his gun fall upon the bed with a soft thump. “We appear to be on a pirate ship that doesn’t know it’s a pirate ship, or at least has no intention of admitting as much.”

“But surely now is our chance to escape,” George says with far more certainty than he feels.

“How so?” asks the admiral.

“This ship is about to do battle with a vessel loyal to the Crown. We can take up arms against this crew and cross sides to Easton’s enemy.”

The admiral stares at him for a moment, bleary eyed. He breaks into a smile and then a chuckle.

“It doesn’t seem such a stupid idea to me,” says George quietly.

The admiral pauses, shrugs and gives George a look of despair. “Captain Dawson,” he says “the ship we’re referring to is already running away and nothing has happened yet. What kind of a fight would you expect them to put up? My guess is it has advance intelligence and knows this is Easton’s fleet. They have seen they are outnumbered by four to one, and have decided to try to outrun Easton so that they may live to fight another day.”

Frustration boils in George’s chest. “Are you going to suggest we do the same?”

The admiral looks off into the middle distance. The cabin sways as the ship continues to race through the ocean.

“Do you want to see your young woman again? Your Rosalind?” Whitbourne asks and then pauses. “War, Captain Dawson, is about tactics. It is nine parts waiting things out, one part courage. I have yet to see a noble or fiery gesture that has not lost a battle. That ship running for its life has a captain who, in all probability, is as valiant and true as any who serves. He is thinking of his crew, his command and his country. That is why he is staying out of Easton’s hands.”

“And what about us, Admiral? We are already in Easton’s hands.”

“You are right, of course,” he says sadly, still staring into space, “and I don’t have an answer. We are at least partially armed, as you say. We could, if we decided, kill Easton himself and chance the consequences.”

Encouraged, George leans forward. “Would that not be worth the chance?”

The admiral closes his eyes for a second and nods. “It would mean certain death, of course,” he replies quietly.

George feels an unexpected change within himself. Now that the admiral seems to be seriously considering it, he feels as though he is standing upon a precipice. It is like last night’s dream when there were miles of tumbling darkness below him. Suddenly he wants to step back from the edge.

“Yes, Captain,” the admiral concludes, “perhaps it is our duty in the circumstances.”

“Yes,” George replies. But it is a mild, sickly yes, one that begs to be argued with.

The admiral glances up at him. “But there is one thing we should consider.”

“Yes,” George prompts rather too eagerly.

“Easton is an outlaw right now. But the favour and disfavour of the King is balanced upon a razor’s edge. The near future could bring a pardon for Easton. If we were the ones who brought the King some of Easton’s gold as well as his allegiance, would we not be doing the Crown a better service than if we killed him?”

The ship sways and plunges deeper as it seems to change direction slightly.

It’s a muddy, scrawled pattern the admiral is painting, not at all the clean, sharp vision of courage and virtue he had come to the New-found-land with six months before. Yet the man who was proposing it had been an officer during the defeat of the great Armada; it had to make sense. The image of the tumbling oblivion retreats.

“Yes, it makes sense,” George says.

The admiral sighs in some relief, it seems. “Then you had best go to your cabin and rest while I make plans.” He looks up at his porthole and at the tipping sky as though to gauge the battle outside. “The chase can’t last much longer.”

George lies face up on his bed, feeling the constant creaks and moans as the vessel lunges through the swell. He sees clouds skip past through the high porthole. Slowly he becomes aware of another noise below, something low and primal yet distinctly human—a familiar sound. It is the weeping he heard the previous night and had entirely forgotten, thinking it part of a dream.

He springs up, half-surprised at his own interest. It is surely only the slave woman in the midst of some curious tribal lament. Her quarters must be very near and possibly below his own. But somehow the weeping brings Rosalind to his mind, and in another moment he is up and pacing the room. What vanity to think his absence would so naturally mean her grief! They are indeed promised and she does expect him back. But it is a slow and stately courtship. The few letters that have been exchanged since their parting could be read by both sets of parents with hardly a blush.

He tries to remember her face in detail and pictures her again under the beech tree, as in last night’s dream. The birds are singing as before, and the dappled sunlight shoots its golden arrows though the boughs. Yet the face won’t form. He thinks of each detail: the little spread of freckles over one side of her cheek, the blue eyes. Each time he tries to build the whole picture, something goes drastically wrong. The visage of the slave interposes, with her mournful chestnut-coloured eyes and her smooth, dark skin. And even the form within Rosalind’s embroidered bodice is not Rosalind’s own petite, well-poised form. When he views his dream from a distance he can see under the tree only the languid, graceful movements of the slave. In a panic of discomfort George tries again and again, but cannot turn the vision back to what it should be. He thinks of kneeling down and praying upon his sword in the manner of a chivalrous play. The gesture would be hardly melodramatic in the circumstances. He is, after all, on a pirate ship speeding to capture a loyal British vessel. There are manifold dangers before him, both physical and moral, and he is in danger of losing his inspiration, the lady for whom he encounters such perils in the first place.

His spiraling panic is halted at least for the moment by another sound. The crying has continued, but it is joined by another woman’s voice, soft and cooing like a dove. They make a strange harmony together, one weeping, the other talking incoherently but in the universally recognizable tones of comfort. And as the second voice continues, the weeping begins to slow and soften. George sits down again upon the bed. He hears the first voice trail away entirely. The second holds on for a few more phrases, then also ceases.

Now there is only the creaking of the ship and the hiss of the rushing spray. He listens, feeling calmer than before. Then suddenly there comes a jolting vibration, emanating from far below. George recognizes the sound of a cannon ramp. The noise repeats as somewhere beneath him iron cannon wheels roll backward to load and forward in preparation for firing. Then comes the sound of a small explosion and the cracking of timber. George picks up the chair and places it beneath the porthole. He climbs up to see. The loyal frigate stands before him, its starboard side not more than twenty yards away and racing side by side with the
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. It’s an impressive, shiny vessel, with sails like whitened holly leaves, angular and pointed. A lesser mast in the stern is broken in the middle and doubled over onto the deck. Smoke rises from this wreckage and men clamber about trying to keep their feet. Some of the crew run to the starboard rail, gesticulating wildly at the
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. The cannons are unmanned. Two or three officers are waving white handkerchiefs.

George gets down from the window and slumps on the chair. He feels ashamed that a navy ship should surrender to this pirate after receiving a single cannon blast. It was not the ethic he had learned at school. It was not the way of Drake and all fierce and loyal protectors of his homeland. Had it all been a lie—the tales of valiance and nobility in death? Did ships only engage when they were likely to win?

The vessel begins to slow, and the sound of bellowing comes from the porthole. They are beginning to negotiate their surrender, apparently. Footsteps run this way and that along the deck. There is the sound of boards being dropped and tied from the deck to make gangways. Heavy footfalls sound on the deck once more. Then silence. George waits.

It is almost evening when he hears the door to the vestibule open, then a knock on his door.

The sound is so homely, so unlike anything that has happened in his present mad existence that he almost forgets entirely where he is.

“Come!” he says.

The door opens and the slave appears. George’s heart jumps.

“Sir,” she says, “Easton wants you to dine.”

Her voice is low and mellifluous. The accent is thick and bears no comparison to French or Spanish except in its foreignness. She waits for a second then turns to leave. George barely resists the urge to call her back although he has no idea what he will say to her if he does.

When she has gone, George’s heart still beats hard. He knows it must be the unfortunate connection his dream has made between this woman and his Rosalind. He is in an unsettled state, he knows, and he must subdue unhealthy thoughts before they go too far. He walks over to the wash jug, pours some water into the basin. He cups the water in his hands, raises it and smells. Fresh water, not brine. He has never known fresh water to be used for washing on board a vessel before. Easton’s luxuries, it seems, are without end.