Greenbeard (9781935259220) (17 page)

“Yes, it is Mr Benjamin. He has tied his wig on with string, and it is flapping, hee-hee! The Captain, too, and Mr Chippendale, and the barrel, and a bundle of sticks, or something. They are going forward … onto the forepeak. Mr Benjamin is buggering about with the sticks … aah! It is a kite! A big kite! I used to have a kite when I was a boy ashore, but it is much bigger than that. He has launched the kite into the wind! … It soars! The carpenter is paying out the line, and the kite soars ahead of the barky … the Captain and Mr Benjamin have put the barrel on the rail. Aha! The bar-shot is rigged alike to a keel on the barrel, and something
sticks out of the top, alike to a little mast. They are tying the line off to the little spike-mast. The kite flies high now, and almost all the string is paid out.”

Jemmy Ducks, in his scan of the obscured horizon, could see the kite as it lofted high towards the cloud, but he tore his eyes from it to continue his watch; if he missed something again the Captain would surely have him flogged, or else the crew would kill him. Jack Nastyface continued, shouting about the keening of the wind.

“The line is all paid out … they have pushed the barrel over the side! The Captain waves to Mr Bucephalus by the wheel.”

The
Ark de Triomphe
turned away from the floating barrel. Jack Nastyface hauled himself upright to let a party of foremast-jacks clamber out on the yard. He could see the barrel bobbing amongst the white wave-tops. The kite was towing it perceptibly, such was the strength of the wind.

“By the Saints! The kite pulls the barrel! Take care, Jemmy, the squall is almost upon us!”

“I can see that, you dullard! Look to your own handholds. Watch the barrel! What the devil are they doing? Why throw a barrel into the oggin to get pulled by a kite? It makes little sense.”

“The kite is soaring into the cloud-bottoms! I never got my kite to fly so high! Here comes the squall! … Oh!”

From the corner of his eye Jemmy Ducks saw first a white flash, then a red light, and a fraction of a second later heard a ‘boom'.

“Oh, crikey!” yelled Jack. “There is a strange thing! I have never seen the like of that! I trow I have not!”

“Seen the like of what, you fathead?”

“Well, that is a wonder! A wonder indeed!”

“What is a wonder, you donkey?”

The squall howled around their ears, and a lightning flash lit the bottoms of the clouds an eerie blue. Jack Nastyface waited to speak until the thunder and the squall had abated.

“A great wonder, indeed! I have never seen the like of that!”

“Of WHAT!” pleaded Jemmy, still keeping his watch as though his life depended on it.

“Har! When the kite went into the bottom of the clouds lightning ran down
the string, like a line of white fire, then the barrel blew up, ‘boom!' The fire of the levin-bolt must have lit the gunpowder in the barrel! How very extraordinary!” He peered down at the deck. “The Captain congratulates Mr Benjamin, and claps him on the back! He must be a wise old cove to know the nature of lightning, and to guide it into a barrel of powder! I take my hat off to him!”

 

 

Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges and his officers were still chuckling from the surprise of the explosion, shaking their heads and going, in their different ways ‘
zzzzt! BOOM!
', to demonstrate how the barrel had detonated. The Captain sloshed dark rum into Bulbous Bill's
lignum-vitae
beaker, then Israel Feet's tarred leather drinking-jack, then Blue Peter's tumbler of precious diamond-cut Bohemian crystal, then his own chased-silver goblet and finally Frank Benjamin's pewter tankard. He raised his goblet:

“A toast, me hearties! A fulsome toast to Mister Frank Benjamin, the man who has mastered the fire of the lightning-bolt, leading it where he wills, alike to the good farmer who directs water to the parched field through leats and ditches with a turn of his spade! A toast!”

They downed their rum and banged their various drinking-vessels back onto the Captain's desk. The ship rolled with the seas, and rain rattled on the tall transom windows from the following wind, but the Great Cabin of the
Ark de Triomphe
seemed cosy with light from the oil-lamps and the warm fellowship of the pirates. Mr Benjamin grinned modestly and raised his tankard:

“My thanks, friends and shipmates! Captain Greybagges has done me great honour by inviting me to join your illustrious company, and I am glad to have given such pleasure by a modest demonstration of the power of natural philosophy. I return your toast in full measure! To the lusty buccaneers of the good ship
Ark de Triomphe
and to their captain, the illustrious Sylvestre de Greybagges!”

They drank again. Mr Benjamin seated himself, staggering a little from a lurch of the ship. He filled his pipe.

“I must say, though, Captain,” he said, “that you may have to repay your excellent carpenter for the reel of fine copper wire which I used to direct the flow of electrick fluid down the kite-string. He was loath to part with it, and I had to
invoke your name to ensure his compliance. It is a pricey commodity, that cuprous filament, not valuable for its metal, but for the rare skill required to draw it so hairlike thin, and now most of it is turned to vapour.”

“Surely I shall reimburse Mr Chippendale his reel of wire, and another reel of wire of pure gold if I can find such a thing, for his metal thread has shown to me that certain things, certain
plans
of mine, lie within the bounds of the possible, and are not mere pipe-dreams. I am grateful for that, and relieved, and grateful to you, too, Frank.”

The Captain refilled their cups once again. Mr Benjamin leaned forward to nod and acknowledge the Captain's compliment, the flickering light of the oil-lamp reflecting on his
pince-nez
spectacles as ovals of yellow.

“This is also an opportune moment for me to add that Mr Benjamin is now a full member of the crew, with all the rights, responsibilities, emoluments and perquisites appertaining to that position, as laid out in the Free Brotherhood o' the Coast's rule-book. Somebody give Mr Benjamin a copy to study at his leisure. Be assured, though, Frank, that I shall not command you to stand a dog-watch as masthead lookout dressed only in your wig and your drawers, har-har!”

There was mirth at this sally, but Mr Benjamin did not seem unduly put out, smilingly slyly and sipping his rum.

“You said as how you might have plans, Cap'n?” said Bulbous Bill Bucephalus carefully.

“Indeed I do, Bill. Indeed I have plans. They are still in a state of vagueness because of their dependence on certain things happening, mind you, so I am unwillin' to discuss them much. Things will be clearer to me after I have settled some business in London.”

 

 

Up in the mainmast cross-trees Jemmy Ducks and Jack Nastyface wrangled idly about this and that, Jemmy all the time keeping a regular circle-scan of the horizon, or what could be seen of it through the darkness and rain. Occasional flashes of lighting lit the clouds from within and without.

“… yes, I am envious of you, Jack. The crew do not have a down on you. I don't blame them, but it's mortal hard on a fellow to get all these black looks, I can tell you.”

“Har! ‘Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy cheeks!' The Captain said that earlier to the sailing-master,” said Jack, “but I think he was just quoting and didn't mean that Bill had been being envious at all. He said it were by a famous fellow name of Sir Thomas Browne, he …”

Jack would have said more, but a face appeared over the mast, dimly pale in the cloud-dimmed moonlight.

“Cap'n says you two nippers, you two young gentlemen, are to go the galley, get something hot inside yuz,” said the foremast-jack, “and I to take yer place, for my sins.”

“Not just yet!” shouted Jemmy Ducks. “Call you down to the steersman! There are white breakers to port side! White breakers less'n two miles to port!”

The foremast-jack turned and hailed the steersman at the wheel in a deep and powerful voice.

“
Y
ou did not save the ship, it is true, Jemmy,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges. “The sailing-master had already seen the white of the waves upon the rocks – a ship does not depend upon the sight of one pair of eyes alone - but your warning was timely and seamanlike. It has restored your good name among the crew, too. Why do you wish to pay off and go ashore? I am curious.”

The Captain sat at his desk in the Great Cabin of the pirate frigate
Ark de Triomphe
, with a tankard of London-brewed ale in his hand.

Jemmy Ducks spoke, after a little thought.

“I am glad to have regained the trust of my messmates, indeed, I am, but I am not, by my own nature, suited to the life of a pirate, Captain. I have been in some brisk engagements, and I believe I have not shown a want of courage?” Jemmy Ducks looked hopefully at the Captain, who nodded his agreement. “And yet I get but little pleasure from being in an action. Not like the others, to whom fighting is like nuts and cake. I am proud to have been a buccaneer, and consider myself fortunate to have served under your command, Captain, but, in all truth, I find I cannot make it my life, so I intend to use my portion of the plunder to seek another path more suited to my nature.”

The Captain turned his attention to Jack Nastyface, who was standing next to his friend, staring at him with an expression of amazement upon his long face.

“And you, Jack?” said the Captain. “What is your wish?”

 

 

“That poor fellow Jack Nastyface
actually
squirmed,” said Captain Greybagges to Blue Peter, while pouring ale for them both. “I have never seen anybody
squirm
before, I think. Not properly. His whole bony frame was twitching. I could see his toes wriggling in his shoes.”

Blue Peter grinned and drank some ale.

“All very well for you to snigger, Peter, but I could not laugh. After a while he squeaked ‘I wish to remain, Cap'n! I wish to be a buccaneer!' while tears came to his eyes.”

“And you accepted?” said Blue Peter, one eyebrow raised.

“Indeed I did. I had planned to let them both pay off, and maybe keep Jemmy Ducks if he insisted, but Jack had chosen the ship and the pirate's life over his best and only friend, and in a moment, too, so I felt that I must allow him the confidence of his own decision. Oddly enough, Jemmy was not much surprised, and shook Jack's hand and wished him well. They are off ashore now, getting themselves drunk.”

“And swearing eternal friendship, too, I do not doubt. It is sad, you are right, but I am impressed by Jemmy's decision, and by Jack's, too. I had not thought them so mature in their considerations. How many have you paid off now?”

Captain Greybagges took a swig of ale and consulted the papers on his desk.

“One hundred and sixty-two. Most of them willingly. Old Joshua from the larboard watch did not want to go, but I persuaded him that a turn ashore living in comfort would set him up ready to sail again in the future. I don't think he ever will, mind you. I arranged for him to buy a cottage near his sister in Gravesend, and made him see a surgeon about his bursten belly. He wishes to put his nephews through school, and that too is arranged. Eton would not have them, of course, the stuck-up sods, but Christ's Hospital school at Greyfriars were not so particular. Our Bank of International Export loaned them the money for their chapel roof so I had them recommend the two little thugs to them as souls worth saving. They will have to wear those blue coats and yellow stockings, which will make them more humble, and perhaps the beaks there will thrash some learning into their dirty little heads. One of those brats tried to lift my purse, you know, when I took Old Joshua down to Gravesend.”

“That one will grow up to be a minister of the Crown, surely,” laughed Blue Peter, “or an archbishop. Speaking of ministers of the Crown, did you see your school-friend Billy Pitt?”

“We had a decent dinner yesterday in Dirty Dick's tavern at Bishop's Gate. He is a shrewd fellow. He has taken on some of the business that other ministers disdain, the kind of work that does not allow for entirely clean hands.”

“Intelligencing, you mean?”

“Exactly. He has a relish for it, the bloodthirsty little devil. I was able to assist him by offering our Bank of International Export as a conduit for funds to pay his agents, since we have branches in foreign parts, and he was able to assist me by helping to keep our affairs discreet.”

“How so?” said Blue Peter, refilling their tankards. “This is good ale.”

“Indeed. Some say the finest ale is from the countryside, but a London brew is hard to beat in my opinion, provided it has not been watered, of course. We are currently still masquerading as the
Groot Ombeschaamheid
, but that vast and well-informed enterprise the Dutch East India Company has surely heard reports by now that they have a ship that they do not have, so to speak. Billy Pitt will be able to confuse the matter a little by feeding them false information. Otherwise, we are well concealed, yet in plain sight. Listen ...”

The noises of the waterfront murmurred through the open stern windows. The Pacific Wharf at Rotherhithe was only recently constructed, a fine new quay of timber pilings and planks with a wide apron of rammed gravel behind it, so making a solid wall to shoulder against the weight of the slapping River Thames. It hummed with activity. Stevedores rolled barrels and staggered under the weight of sacks and crates, Waggons and carts came and went, their wheels crunching on the gravel, their drivers cracking whips and roaring imprecations at each other. Persons of importance, by their own estimations or otherwise, clad in broadcloth, fustian, nankeen or silk, topped by powdered wigs and hats limited only by their purses and the fevered imaginations of milliners, came and went in sedan chairs, shays, fiacres, flys, dogcarts, coaches, diligences, carrioles, sulkies and even a solitary four-in-hand, their coachmen returning the costers' curses with enthusiasm and wit, real or imagined. A light breeze carried the scents of spices, tar and sawn timber, the rot-stink of a slaughterhouse, the acrid stench of a tannery, the wet earthy smell of the river. The
Ark de Triomphe
moved gently with the breeze and the slapping of the river-waters, and the oakum dodgers that protected it from the rough-planked quay squeaked and the hempen mooring cables, as thick as a thigh, creaked and groaned sullenly. From the taverns, wine-shops and bawdy-houses that backed the wide quay came occasional shrieks, shouts and gusts of drunken laughter.