Kingston by Starlight Read online

  The ship’s company was divided into halves, call’d larboard and starboard, in order to divvy up the tasks of operating the ship. I was designated a position on the starboard rotation. While one shift was on duty, the other shift was usually engaged in sleep down below, or in revels of some sort. While on duty, we all had places on the ship, fore and aft, with the more experienced sea-dogs station’d at or around the forecastle. Then, next in esteem, came the topmen, and the duties of the lower yard fell to them; following that group came the afterguard, who oversaw the after-braces, main, mizzen, and lower-stay sails. Next, and lastly, were the newcomers, and I numbered among this grouping. All the labor on board a ship is hard work, but the newbirds were assigned, by custom, the hardest, sweatiest, dirtiest work of all, including watching and working the main and foresheets, swabbing the decks, knotting ropes, discarding waste into the sea, and whatnot. All these tasks I did when I was not sleeping below or not at my regular post on the masthead.

  By some miraculous process, which amazed even the ship’s officers, Sugar-Apple managed to keep the crew reasonably soaked in grog, though I noted, but kept to myself, that the beverage was becoming increasingly thin in consistency as the stores of drinking water were dissipating at a rate faster than originally forecast. But Sugar-Apple, canny as he was, understood that a privateer ship floated as much on grog as it did upon the sea, and so he kept the flow going, no matter how diluted. Still, with water and grog in limited supply, crew members were in a near-constant state of thirst. Tempers were short and physical confrontations and contests were common occurrences.

  In an effort to mask the modesty associated with beings of my sex, tho’, I should say, little of that inclination naturally resides in me, I joined in heartily with the general spirit of competition. It was yet another role for me to take on in the drama of my life, and I took to it as eagerly as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. While scrubbing the decks down with sand one afternoon I was questioned by Bishop as to the pace and forcefulness of my work. Tho’ he was an officer, and I but a newbird, I cheekily put the query right back to my interrogator and asked him if he would care to wager a day’s rations ’gainst the proposition that I could scrub a prescribed length of floor faster and cleaner than he, with an impartial man as judge. Bishop, a calm fury in his eyes at my impudence, docked my dinner one biscuit and continued in his paces. But my point had been made with the rest of the crew: I was not the sort to back down from a confrontation. I subsequently faced contests in rope-climbing, knot-tying, and unfurling the mainsail. I triumphed in the challenges I took on, or at least in a great many of them. But even in a rare defeat, the general level of respect for my labors increased among the men who worked beside me on the decks. These rough wooden planks were my proscenium, the sails my stage curtains!

  The crew of the William ofttimes strove to give some ease to their travails by engaging in games of chance and other forms of mirth and diversion. At the start of the shortages, cards and dice were forbidden, by terms of the captain’s orders, on the grounds that they were a prevailing source of combat between crew members. But the men, officers and newbirds alike, secretly continued in such play, the general view being that such entertainments were a natural and essential part of sea-life and thus should be tolerated, so long as fists, and not firearms or dirks, were used to settle disputes concerning them.

  So, in the lower decks, the tedious hours were pass’d with such vagaries as Hob, Spice the Market, Dilly-Dolly, and Back-Gammon. Many hours were also whiled away singing and dancing, distractions that arose spontaneously under the influence of grog and the steady gaze of the stars. The men would twirl each other ’round and laugh, or else form kick-lines, all stomping their booted feet to a shared rhythm as flutes and fiddles played on. Each session of buffoonery and jocularity continued until the stars came out, or the sun went down, or the new shift began, or the grog ran dry, or the good nature of one or more of the men came to its natural end, resulting in profane taunts, bawdy challenges, the drawing of small arms, and a general agreement to dissolve the gathering to preserve the health and safety of all.

  During such periods of jollity, I maintain’d a certain degree of control in my carriage, due to the secret of my sex and, in addition, because of the continuing interest in my affairs by those who seem’d to wish me no goodwill. Xbalanque, from his place at the masthead, kept an eye on my movements on deck, like some carrion bird tracking its prey from a treetop. Ofttimes, when I would look up, to spy a passing cloud to track the wind or note the patterns of the constellations, I would catch the glint of his eye from high above and he would hiss back at me like some serpent in human form. Bishop, too, was following my moves as well as actively asserting his dislike for me. Once, when he caught me engaged in a game of dice with Angel, with whom he regularly play’d such sports, he nonetheless took me to task for my transgression of ship’s rules, tho’ he spared Angel a similar punishment.

  “By the devil, you’ve brought some curse onto this ship, tho’ I know not what,” Bishop said. “Meantime, you’ll suffer half-rations for today, for the playing at games of chance.”

  “But . . .”

  “Quarter-rations then,” he said. “And not another word, or I’ll put the matter to a general vote and see you maroon’d.”

  Happily, Sugar-Apple, that sweet sort-of Swede, ignored Bishop’s order of quarter-rations and, more than that, he shared with me some victuals from his secret store: a basket of various fruits of a tropical origin.

  “Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow,” said Sugar-Apple. “Put it all behind ye and eat a little.”

  “You never struck me as a hoarder,” I told Sugar-Apple, as I greedily tore into his gift of a rotten orange.

  “I save all this not for myself, but as a safeguard ’gainst mutiny. Many a ship has turned bloody for lack of victuals. In my estimation, a ship’s cook is second in importance among officers, before the quartermaster and the boatswain and behind only the captain himself.”

  “I did not know the cook was consider’d an officer.”

  “Well,” said Sugar-Apple, winking, “in my mind at least.”

  “Do ya think any of the men capable of rising up?”

  “Under regular circumstances, now, this lot ain’t got the heart for it. But the stomach is a more powerful organ than the heart. I hear talk. At the very least, I could envision the captaincy being put to a vote.”

  “Who would vote ’gainst Calico?”

  “Perhaps one of his officers— one with a grudge.”

  “What? First-Rate?”

  “No, not him.”

  “But I’ve heard he was forced on board by the sea-dogs’ choice.”

  “’Tis a lie, and a damn’d one at that.”

  “What is the truth of it then?”

  “He had grown exhausted with the Royal Navy when he join’d us— some secret of his background or upbringing held him back in the ranks. Calico did him a great kindness by admitting him to our company. First-Rate would never turn against him.”

  “So who would rise ’gainst Calico?”

  “Only a fool. But, like any ship on account, we’ve got a boatload of ’em.”

  “Bishop.”

  “Aye, he’s a candidate. And if Bishop takes over the craft by vote or other means, it’ll go hard on all the men, not just on you. Bishop’s both smart and cruel, and that’s a dangerous combination.”

  “What’s his true name?”

  “Yer full of queries! Well, as to his name, nobody knows, and I’ve never heard him tell the tale.”

  “Well, where did he get the name Bishop?”

  “He was the chaplain of a ship, a French vessel she was. We took ’er on the open sea and offer’d her crew—”

  “The sea-dogs’ choice. Join or face the blade.”

  “Exactly. Bishop was, I’m told, a man of some piety before his capture. But after preaching so long ’bout the hereafter, he decided, when faced with the imminent prospect of it, that
he liked the here-and-now well enough. He threw his prayer book overboard, I saw him do as much, and his vestments as well.”

  “Then he join’d the ranks.”

  “No— there’s more of this vessel beneath the waterline! First-Rate advised the captain that threatening a man of God would bring the ship an ill omen. So, in the end, Bishop was allow’d to make his decision without coercion or enticement.”

  “So why’d he join?”

  “Who knows why a man does this or that or the other thing? This, I do know— I saw Bishop’s face that day, the afternoon he chose, of his own free will, to come on board this vessel and sail ’gainst heaven itself. I saw his visage and it was, I’d testify, like when a slug turns into a soft-wing’d butterfly, ’cept the opposite transformation took place. I tell ye true, his countenance, which, and this comes with the grace of God, formerly had a placid demeanor, like some mirror’d sea swept with no wind, by quick turns became wrought with some fierce distemper, like a rough zephyr blew hard an’ dirty cross his soul. Truly now, my lad, I’ve seen events that would make dead men sweat and curdle mothers’ milk in the breast, but even I turn’d away at the horror and melancholy of the sight.”

  As I mused on Sugar-Apple’s words and gobbled down the sour rind of my orange, there was a shout from above deck.

  “Best take to yer station,” said Sugar-Apple.

  “But I have yet to pose my chief query: what’s in your iron trunk?”

  Sugar-Apple winked again.

  “All the riches of Cork,” he said. “Now get ye topside! There’s a chase afoot!”

  chapter 15.

  I have long found it entertainingly peculiar that although the articles and customs of seafaring folk prohibit the services of women on board ships, the vessels themselves are poetically and commonly understood to be of the female sex. I had long thought this latter tradition to be a mere illusion of some sort. After long fortnights at sea, and many days and nights spent outside the fair company of that gentler sex, it seem’d a reasonable thing to imagine the presence of women in that place where quite plainly none were present, just as a parched man, while traveling the desert, dreams up oases of water. And of course women, being thought of from time immemorial as creatures of many moods not all anchor’d in sense and logic, are quite easily linked to the vagaries of ships of the sea: the temperamental sails that get caught in the riggings, the leaky oak planks that cry and groan for the balm of pine tar, the clean beauty of the decks when they’ve been properly scrubbed. Ships, indeed, for every man, can become any woman: the jilted lover, the nagging wife, the starry-eyed daughter, the sluttish mistress, the unattainable goddess.

  How absurd, some might reason, to regard a dead floating hunk of wood and rope as one would a living, breathing woman! And yet, I, too, began to regard the Will in just the same manner. I had felt a fanciful kinship with the vessel, yes, but what was inanimate had become inamorata. I no longer laughed so heartily when the boys called ’er the Williamina, a tone of caring in their voice. I no longer smiled so gaily when one of the old salts stroked ’er railings like he was caressing some maid’s blushing cheek. By my troth, even as I felt the womanhood in me drain out, like the last draught in a drinking mug poured out in tribute to a fallen comrade, I simultaneously sensed a growing distaff presence all around me. She was under my feet, echoing in the hold; she was just above my head, billowing in the sails; she was in the gleam of the hull as the white waves crashed ’gainst the sides, her voice called out with the boom of every swivel cannon on the quarterdeck. Just as I once heard Bishop and Angel and First-Rate and the rest pleading, conversing, and cooing to the ship as if she were a mortal woman with understanding and emotion, so too, I, while sitting in my perch at the masthead during the hours of my watch, would ofttimes find my lips moving, engaged in some unheard discussion with my silent partner, my ship, my Willa, my lady love who never requited my passion for her in words.

  And now, as I came up from the lower decks, I could feel ’er dander up.

  “Ready about, ladies!” cried Calico, who was at his place on the poop deck. “Stations for stays!”

  I could feel my heart in my chest. These are the moments that all should have— too many go about their lives, hardly ever feeling their arms and legs and innards. But, ahh, onboard a privateer vessel, when those calls go up—“Stations for stays!”— when the smell of powder is in the air— is any perfume so sweet?— you feel yourself as if for the first time. Those things that you forget in the day-to-day amnesia of living— the drawing of breath, the pumping of blood through the veins— one remembers again, all in a rush. You remember your body, which you had lost for so long. Aye, you remember yourself.

  “Stations for stays!” Bishop called out.

  This was the signal for one and all to move with alacrity to their designated positions, to see everything clear and to get the braces ready for running. The William was moving through the water nicely, neither jammed up so tight that the weather leeches of the sails were shaking, nor too far off the wind beside.

  “Ready! Ready!” the cry went up. “Ease down the helm!”

  Calico, Bishop, and First-Rate were at their usual posts on the poop; First-Rate put down the wheel slowly when thus addressed.

  “Helm’s a-lee!” cried Calico.

  The hands on deck let go the foresheet and headsheets.

  “Raise tacks and sheets!”

  Ahhh— our prey was now in our sight. Like the wolf in pursuit of the rabbit, our jaws slavered in anticipation but we kept our eyes focused. She was a small vessel, boasting but two masts, and with a crew of perhaps twelve souls on board.

  “Haul taut, you sea-bitches! Mainsail haul!”

  And then, following hard on those commands, the words that filled our souls with wind: “Lift, too, the black flag!”

  Now, our grim emblem flying, the crew of the ship we pursued took full notice of our vessel. We could see also their ship was loaded with goods of some sort— crates and barrels, containing what we could only guess. Whether provisions or treasure, we surely needed ’em.

  “Halt your flight!” Calico bellow’d. “We sail under a black flag! Prepare to be boarded!”

  The two-masted ship did no such thing. Instead, she hoisted sails and tacked into the wind, opening up some distance between our ships.

  Calico was angry now. His fury spread to the other men, who grit their teeth and set their brows. Calico signal’d to Angel, who readied his canon. Poop, who was his powder-boy, scurried from the captain’s deck to take his place at Angel’s side on the quarterdeck.

  Now, Angel was given his name not because of any resemblance he shared with those bless’d winged creatures of our Master’s heavenly host, but because of his affection and copious use of Angel-shot, a form of ammunition in which a cannonball is sheared in two and the two halves joined by a small length of chain.

  Poop took a cartridge, a flannel bag with some six pounds of powder in it, and rammed it down the muzzle of Angel’s cannon. When Angel saw it breech, he let loose the cry: “Home!” Next, Angel pulled out his precious Angel-shot from a nearby barrel. This he dropped down the barrel of his cannon, followed by a wad, which Poop rammed home. Angel then lit a slow fuse.

  “Fire!” he cried.

  An explosion rocked the craft, like ten thunderclaps. The Angel-shot tore through the air with a piercing screech. The two halves of the shot spread out, the chain between them. The whole wicked creation now ripped through the crew of the opposing vessel, ripping off legs and arms and blazing a path of general destruction before thudding into a stack of goods on the ship’s starboard side and setting them alight.

  Next, a curious event transpired. The crew of the two-masted ship made no effort to save the goods that were set ablaze. Instead, they pushed and prodded them off the deck of the ship and let them fall, sizzling and sparking, into the waters of the Caribbean. What’s more, additional crew members were emerging from the hold bearing what seemed to be crates of
foodstuffs and barrels of water. These, too, they dumped into the water.

  Calico signaled Angel.

  “Fire on the down roll of the next wave,” said Calico. “Let’s hit ’em low, and put the threat of sinking in their minds.”

  Again, Angel’s cannon boomed. This time he aimed at the opposing ship’s side, piercing it with shot.

  As the smoke cleared, we could see the men on the other vessel still going about their task of throwing goods into the sea.

  Calico, alarmed, came to the railing of our ship and put a brass speaking trumpet to his lips.

  “Are there any aboard who would trade their treasure and foodstuffs for their lives?” he asked. “We mean you no bodily harm, this we swear by the black flag we fly! Surrender your goods and then we will let you about your way!”