Pirate Freedom (14 page)

I got that officer in the side, before somebody hit me. When I was conscious again (and feeling like something scraped off a shoe), my hands were tied behind me, and so were Melind's.

What it came down to was that we had to go—get in our piraguas and go off the island. If we did that, they said, we could leave in peace. If we did not leave, they would hold us where we were until more men came. They had sent for them, they said, and they would be there the next day.

We pretended not to believe them, but we did. I did, and I know Melind did, too. They were too happy about it for it not to be true. (It is pure hell to see somebody you hate happy. I found that out then.) Parties of soldiers and farmers had been searching the island for the past few days, and now that this one had found us the others would join it. They agreed to let us bury our dead and fill our water bottles, then we had to go. I would guess it was about noon the next day when we left, twenty or thirty men in four piraguas, but I
was still feeling rocky, and I do not remember a lot about it. We camped that night along the coast, and made Tortuga the next day.

The shantytown was gone. The Spanish had blown it apart with their ships' guns, then landed and burned what was left. A lot of people were left just the same. They had run off into the woods when the Spanish guns opened up. Melind got a bunch together that night and talked to them.

Only first, he talked to me. I told him the truth. It was the first time I had told anybody the truth since I had talked to Capt. Burt in his cabin on the
Weald
, so maybe that knock on the head had done me some good. I told him I had been a pirate, could navigate, and was a pretty fair sailor.

I do not remember everything Melind said when he made his speech. Besides, it was in French and there were some things I did not understand. As close as I can come, it went about like this.

"My friends, we have been driven to the wall. If we remain here, they will come again and kill us. If we return to Hispaniola, they will hunt us down and butcher us like cattle. Can we return to France in piraguas? You know that we cannot.

"Every man must choose to live or choose to die. I choose to live, and here is how I propose to do it. With a few friends to whom I have already spoken, I shall follow the coast to San Domingo. Not until very late will we enter its harbor in our piraguas. We will show no light and fire no shot, boarding a likely vessel before the cowardly curs know we have come. As silently as any ghost we will sail out of the harbor, and once we are at sea—well, my friends, I pity anyone who tries to prevent us from going wherever we choose.

"Those who want to accompany us must be ready in the morning. Some of you will not want to come, for whatever reason. We wish you well, and ask only that you pledge our success when next you drink. There remains plenty of water on this island."

When we left next morning, there were seven piraguas in all. I would guess each held ten men. It took us a lot longer to get there than I had expected. It might have been two weeks, but I think it was nearer three. Whenever we came to a Spanish settlement, we robbed the people. We had to, or we would have starved. A few fought, and some got killed while they were begging for their lives. We tried to stop it whenever we could, but I could not be everywhere, and neither could Melind.

In one way, all that time was valuable. We got to know each other, and who could do what. When we were so close we knew we would reach the
harbor after sundown the next day, Melind divided us into two crews, fighters and sailors. My crew was the sailors, and that was half a dozen men plus me. Melind had the fighters.

They would board whatever ship we picked first and take care of the crew, killing everybody who did not give up. My crew would come after them, leave the fighting to them, and get her under way as quick as we could, cutting the anchor cable and running up sails. I would take the wheel and do my best to pilot her out of a harbor I had never seen, at night.

The whole thing scared the heck out of me—I would say it scared everybody—but that was the part that scared me the most. I knew we had a good chance of grounding on a mud flat or whatever, and we would be dead meat if we did. If the ship had a kedge anchor, we could try to kedge off before the guns in the fort blew us to splinters, and dear, dear Saint Barbara, please pray that the nice gunners get a real good sleep.

Next day off we went, all of us knowing that there was a swell chance we were seeing our last sunrise. I had picked out two men to cut anchor cables, and four men to make sail. I told them to set the mains as quick as they could, and we would worry about the rest afterward.

I have seen plans go right and plans go wrong. That one went crazy. Melind and I had said we would look over the ships in the harbor, and try to take the one that looked easiest. Fine, except that there was only one, unless you counted the little fishing boats.

What was worse, I recognized it the minute I saw it, even by moonlight. It was the little flush-decked three-master, the smallest of the Spanish Navy ships that had come into our bay to tell us we had to go. I do not know whether Melind recognized it, too. He may have. He went for it anyway.

So we followed, seven men in the smallest piragua of the bunch. We had planned to wait until the fighters were on board, but we did not. Melind and his bunch climbed over the rail, there were two or three shots, and up we went.

The two I had assigned to cut the anchor cables both went to the bow cable and cut it. I had to cut the stern cable with my dagger, which meant I had to stop cutting and fight twice before I got it cut through. My dagger was sharp, heck yes. Try cutting a thick, tarred rope with a good sharp knife and tell me how it goes.

The worst part was that there was not enough wind just then to bother a candle. My boys set the foresail and the spanker, but there was no wind to fill them.

So, did we do it? By the grace of God, we did. Two things saved us. The first was that the crew was not armed. After that I asked about it, talking to a guy who had been in the French Navy and later to Capt. Burt, who had been in the British. Both navies were so scared of their own men that they kept all the weapons locked up and did not issue them until they thought their men might need them.

The Spanish were the same way—more scared of their own crew than they had been of us. Most of the soldiers had gone ashore, and some of the sailors had, too. The only men on board who had swords, pistols, or anything like that were the officers and a couple of soldiers. My father told me one time that a good lawyer means a lawyer who is more scared of you than he is of the cops, and it seems to me that if somebody is more scared of his own men than he is of the enemy, he ought to go home and go to law school. Those Spanish sailors fought, but it was with belaying pins and handspikes. That sort of stuff. We had our muskets and our knives.

The other thing was the tide. By God's grace it was going out, and as soon as I cut the other anchor cable it started carrying us out of the harbor. We had not paid a bit of attention to the tide, but we should have paid it more attention than anything. Saint Brendan was with us on that, a real stand-up guy.

We had some bad luck, too. Melind had gotten hit in the head with something, and he would not come to. We took good care of him until he stopped breathing, which was four or five days later, I think. It could have been a week. I know it seemed like a long, long time.

I had been his right-hand man, and everybody knew it. I took charge just like on the
New Ark
, only I was a lot more confident. We did not have many sailors, and I was the only man on board who could navigate, so I had the job. I headed for the Guadeloupe Passage because the wind was fair for that, and I figured we ought to make tracks away from Hispaniola for a while. Also I kept thinking here we had a Spanish Navy warship, and why should I not get some of my money back?

Because that was what we had. A little warship, sure, but a warship. With ten guns a side, no way were we going to slug it out with a galleon. But except for galleons, there was not much that could stand up to us. Her name was the
Magdelena
. I liked it and never did change it.

Up to now I have not said anything about the Spanish captives, and there is a reason for that. Once I get into all that it will be a long time before I come out, and I thought you ought to know the other stuff first.

There were only five of them, four men and a boy was what it looked like to me. I had them brought up on deck once the sun was up and talked to them. It was in Spanish, but this is the drift of it.

"We don't like the king of Spain or any of his people much on this ship, and if I listened to my crew the way I ought to, you'd be taking a seawater nap this minute. It would be murder and I'm not crazy about that, but I don't mind it too much either. I see one wounded man. Anybody else wounded?"

Another man edged forward. "Me, Señor. I am." His right arm had been torn up, I think by a musket ball. He was holding it with his left and had a rag wrapped around it.

"Okay, you're out. So is the other wounded man. That leaves three. If any of you three want to join us, we'll take you. Come over here if you do. Stand by me."

The boy did. Nobody else. I had said what I did because I knew that most of the men I had knew about as much about sailing as that priest who let me use his father's guitar. I was hoping to get the two able-bodied seamen, because I knew we were going to need them.

"All right, here's one. Join us, and you'll be full members of this crew. Nobody's going to jump you because you're Spanish. Anything we get— anything we find on board this ship, for example—we'll share out according to the Custom of the Coast. You'll get your full share just like Clément over there. How about it?"

They looked scared, but they shook their heads, both of them. The boy whispered, "I must speak with you alone."

I nodded a little, figuring there might be treasure on the ship. He would know where it was.

Out loud I said, "Okay, the four of you get the jolly boat. Hispaniola's that way." I pointed behind us. "Row hard, and you might make it. Or maybe some other ship will pick you up."

We put all four of them in the boat, and I told the boy to get them a little ship bread, figuring he would know where it was. He had a bottle of water, too, when he came back. As he handed them to me, he whispered, "I must speak with you, Crisóforo."

I nodded again, had the boat lowered into the water, and told the four men in it, "Captain Chris has saved your lives. You tell them that, if you make it."

AFTER THAT, THE
boy and I went into the captain's cabin to have a look at Melind. My idea was that it would be a private place to talk to the boy, and afterward I would have him nurse Melind. I had been doing most of the nursing myself up to then and had been too busy to do it right. So I started with that.

"Out there I told those guys I was the captain," I said, "but this is the real captain. He got hit in the head, and he's been out ever since. I've tried to get him to drink, but I can't. Maybe you can, and I want you to try. Keep him warm and clean, and stand by. That's about all you can do. How did you know my name?"

"He will die, I think." The boy's voice was so soft then that I ought to have known right off. I did not, and I am not going to lie about it. Or about anything else here. I have told a lot of lies in my life, mostly because I had to. I never have liked it or really gotten used to it. I have met people who did it
all the time, as natural as breathing. Maybe that is good, at least for them. But I have never wanted to be one of them.

"You are the captain" was one of the things the boy said to me. At least I still thought he was a boy when she said it.

"I'm acting captain," I told him. "This is the real captain, like I said, and as soon as we can we'll get him to a doctor."

"I knew you would be a captain when I found you."

That got me thinking, and after a minute I said, "You're somebody I met in Port Royal, right? How come we're talking Spanish?"

She laughed, and my jaw dropped.

"My laugh betrays me, I know. This is the first time I have laughed since putting on men's clothing. Would you like to take away my shirt?"

I did not say anything, just reached over and pulled off her cap. I expected a lot of long hair to fall out, the way it would have done on TV. So that was one of the really dumb things I have done. Her long, shining hair was braided in back—one thick black braid that did not quite reach her waist. A lot of sailors wear their hair like that.