Bring It Close (6 page)

Eleven

Blackbeard’s tactics would be to fire a couple of warning shots first, hoping the Chase would surrender without a fight. Usually they did. If not, he and his consort would disable the ship by firing chain shot, grape and langrage at the sails, masts and rigging, then, with the victim in disarray, swoop alongside and board. No anti-boarding nettings, half-hearted firing of pistols or muskets would keep out a shipload of pirates crazed with lust for the anticipation of specie, rum and women.

There would perhaps be a short, bloody, fight as Blackbeard’s barbarians went aboard, but the capture would be over quickly and the captain and officers would pay dearly for their resistance. Passengers would be beaten, the women repeatedly raped. And some of the men. The pirates would lay alongside for as long as it took to transfer the acquired plunder, then be gone. Sometimes that took several days. If the passengers and any living crew were lucky – or unlucky depending on the devastation caused – they would be able to limp to the nearest port. Usually, Edward Teach preferred to set a trail of gunpowder and destroy everything. But then, most of his victims had no desire to stay alive anyway, not after providing the sort of entertainment Blackbeard and his crew enjoyed.

Jesamiah brought
Sea Witch
onto a course that would run her up between the two sloops. A mile away, assuming there were now three sea wolves on her stern, the
Fortune of Virginia
was panicking, her crew clumsily hauling the sails and almost missing stays. She was losing way and the pirates, intending to come up on either side of her, were rapidly gaining. Enough for Teach, ahead of his consort companion, to fire two warning shots from his bow chasers. Skilfully, Jesamiah overhauled the smaller, less efficient sloop, taking all her wind as he surged past to leave her floundering with sails aback, draped and dangling like wet laundry. She was a waterlogged, worm-riddled old tub, not even fit for firewood.

Most of her men, Jesamiah accurately assessed, were drunk. It would take them a while to sort themselves out again.

Spinning the wheel and shouting orders, Jesamiah sent
Sea Witch
leaping after Teach’s
Adventure
. Several musket shots puffed from the
Fortune
. A foolish waste of powder and bullets, there could be no damage done at this distance. Why did they not defend themselves properly? Surely they had cannon? Surely?

~
Tiola
? ~ Knowing it would be useless, Jesamiah tried calling her.

He had asked Isiah to take a good look with the telescope; no woman stood there. At least he had that to be thankful for. Like Alicia, Tiola should be safe in the hold.

Teach, hollering abuse, fired his larboard cannon at
Sea Witch
but he was too late and not accurate, for Jesamiah was cutting in across his bow, running in at a right angle.
Sea Witch
opened fire and raked a rolling broadside, hurling carnage straight along the
Adventure
’s deck from bow to stern as she swept past, leaving a wake of destruction to masts, sails and men.

The
Adventure
shuddered, almost paused, but bravely ran on, Teach swearing and cursing as his bowsprit barely missed
Sea Witch
’s stern. Only a few of his retaliatory shots slammed into her rails sending up shards of splinters, cleaving holes in the sails, causing rigging and shrouds to ping and snap. Most of the balls fell harmlessly into the sea.

Grinning wickedly, ignoring the noise and damage, Jesamiah removed his hat and gave an insolent salute. So close were the two vessels as Teach surged forward and past, Jesamiah could see the glare in the furious pirate’s bulging eyes. Imagined he felt the ensuing projected spittle on his cheek. Jesamiah wiped it away. Sea spray. Only natural spindrift.

He had no need to load again. His first broadside had been from the starboard battery. His larboard guns were primed and ready, and he had no intention of giving Teach time to do anything except die. Teach had the same idea, but with a semi-drunken crew he was slow to reload and had lost valuable seconds deciding whether to go on after his original Prize or alter course and rid himself of this irritating flea biting at him. He decided to abandon the
Fortune of Virginia
and swat at the flea. He tacked, raggedly, his bellows cursing his slovenly crew with every crudity imaginable.

“Get this ship moving!” he roared. “Get after that whoreson bastard!”

Sea Witch
was already fifty yards away, every delay aboard the
Adventure
taking her a further distance.

Had Teach also not been on the wrong side of sober, perhaps he might have wondered why Acorne was not yelling for all sail to be set, why the lowest sails were still clewed up, not tumbling in a roar and crack of canvas from the yards. Why
Sea Witch
was not running for her life. But he was not sober, was not sane, and unlike Jesamiah, did not have a disciplined, efficient crew.

“Hands to braces! Stand by headsail sheets!” As Jesamiah shouted, calm, in control, he put the helm down – hard, and the ship’s bow fell away from the wind.

“I has ‘im!” Teach’s crow of victory sounded across the water as the
Adventure
’s yards eventually creaked around and she settled to run up on a parallel course. “Tha bugger’s done fer!”

Jesamiah grinned. Just as he had expected Teach to do. “Back the fores’ls. Heave to!”

The men were anticipating the orders, Jesamiah had personally ensured each one knew what was intended and what to do. Within moments
Sea Witch
had come to a halt. Teach had not been expecting it. Had not considered that an adversary would stop suddenly and sit there waiting for him. But it was too late to wonder at the tactics for the
Adventure
was running up alongside with not more than twenty yards between the two vessels.

And Jesamiah was waiting. Waiting for the right moment. Not yet, not quite yet…

Teach was raging at his crew to reload, the guns had been fired. The
Sea Witch’s
larboard battery was fresh, and ready.

Nearly…

“Nat!” Jesamiah shouted, “Get rid of his colours! Shoot his bloody ensign down!” He pointed at Blackbeard’s flag, the gruesome skeleton of a devil spearing a heart. “Make ready! On the up roll …Fire!”

Sea Witch’s
gunports belched a single broadside, all guns firing together. The
Adventure
shook visibly as each shot found a mark: railings shattered into deadly lengths of splintered wood, some one or two feet in length. The skeleton ensign was torn and shredded. The mast hung a moment, suspended, clinging by the quivering tendons of its stays and shrouds, then with a creaking groan and rigging popping like musket shots, it toppled in slow motion to wedge at a distorted angle, the dirty grey of the canvas falling like covering blankets over the decks and into the sea. Acting as an anchor it dragged the ship askew. Smoke loitered in a heavy, stinking pall. Too busy cheering, not a single man aboard the
Sea Witch
noticed their choking throats, stinging eyes and ringing ears.

Crippled, Teach’s sloop slewed to a halt with not even a chance to fire another shot. Already the
Sea Witch
was under way again, manoeuvring, her captain intent on finishing off the second sloop.

The
Fortune of Virginia
, Jesamiah was glad to see, had taken full advantage of the distraction and was making her escape at a gallop. He well realised that unless he could think of a good excuse he would be a dead man if ever he and Teach were to come face to face. He ought to finish him off here and now, but not with that second sloop behind them. She would have to be dealt with first.

“Bring her round, Rue.”

“
Allez
!” Rue paused to allow the men to scrabble into position; “Man the braces! Tops’l sheets! Tops’l clew lines!
Allez, allez; vite, vite
! We are not on some damned pleasure sail! Let go and ‘aul – another man on the mainbrace there!”

As the shadows of the mighty sails passed across the deck and the bustle below, Jesamiah put the helm down. Protesting, the rigging and canvas clattered, screeched and mithered.

“Meet her! Steady…let her fall off a point.
Oui
! Secure!”

At the helm, Jesamiah exchanged a grin of pleasure with his quartermaster. By Tethys, could
Sea Witch
turn!

The men were a good, loyal crew. They were comrades, family; brothers. Jesamiah shifted position slightly, glanced at the compass in the binnacle to check their course; his right hand was on a lower spoke of the wheel, the left cradling an upper one. Beneath his caress,
Sea Witch
was alive, her minute jerks and vibrations directly communicating to him as clearly as if she were talking, and he talked back through his coaxing fingers and palms, feeling her respond to his touch.

Now all they had to do was chase after that second sloop and finish it off – for the cowards had realised the superiority of Jesamiah’s ship and ability and were scuttling away. For a moment, Jesamiah wondered whether to let her go, to stay here and see to Teach, but he had no doubt if he took his attention away the sloop would change her mind and come back. No, she had to be dealt with.

“Let go and haul!” Jesamiah called. “Set the lowers! We’ll finish her and come back for Teach. He ain’t goin’ nowhere for a while yet!” And the clewed up mizzen, main and fore course sails tumbled from their yards, no longer needed to be kept out of the way to give a clear view along the deck, or be safe from the threat of spreading fire. Required, now, to take full advantage of the following wind and give speed and agility.

As the canvas tumbled, cracking and thundering, billowing outward like live beasts,
Sea Witch
leapt forward as if she was a hound unleashed from the slip, eager to be on the scent and racing after her quarry.

Twelve

Half aware there had been cannons fired, Tiola stirred in her sleep. She had taken laudanum – a single drop, for too much was almost as a poison to her. She wished only to sleep, to quell the churning that flared in her belly, not sink into a senseless stupor.

Who had been firing at them? Who had caused the panic among the men of the
Fortune of Virginia
? For there had been panic, even through the disorientating, muddled haze of her semi-consciousness she had registered that the crew were frightened. Pirates? She wondered as she battled to open her blurred eyes and willed her heavy body to lift itself, at least as far as a sitting position.

Jesamiah? The thought crawled into her sluggish mind. Was he close? She reached out with her hand as if feeling for the near proximity of the
Sea Witch
, but the nausea rose into her throat and she groped for the bucket beside her bed.

She lay back, her eyes closed, her head reeling around and around like a rushing whirlpool. Why, in the name of all sanity, would Jesamiah be attacking the
Fortune of Virginia
? The thought was ridiculous.

Seasickness? Being seasick was just as ridiculous. She did not get seasick. She could not get seasick. So why was she feeling nauseous? Why this distinct lack of equilibrium?

Tiola lay on her bed attempting to relax, and then tried to centre herself, to focus on her sense of balance, not only within herself but as a part of the Universe, as an Immortal of Light. After a while she gave up. She just did not have the energy to bother. Could that be it – the tidal pull of the sea was opposing her energy of Craft; as the moon pulls on the tides, so her Balance was being shifted? She needed to be on land to recharge her inner energy. In which case there was nothing she could do about it at this precise moment.

She willed the comfort of sleep to shroud her. With deliberation, set aside the more absurd notions that she could not explain.

Only her sleep was not comforting. She dreamt of Jesamiah. Jesamiah sprawled on a deck, blood-soaked. Jesamiah, dead.

Thirteen

Jesamiah kept his attention sharp on the sails as he listened to
Sea Witch
singing, aware of the rush and quivering undulations of water rolling beneath her keel, and pressing against the rudder.

“Cowards, making a run for it,” Rue observed, tipping his chin in a pointing motion towards the sloop. “They are scum, fit only for the ‘angman.”

Even among pirates, there was no love for those who followed no code of honour. Who preferred to flee rather than fight.

“We’ll catch ‘em,” Jesamiah answered. “Can’t fail in our duty can we? I carry a Letter of Marque. It states I must clear the sea lanes of ne’er-do-wells, Frenchies and Spanish Dons.” Carefully watching the inconsistencies of a wilful wind, of the fluttering along the edge of the main course, he adjusted the helm, brought it up a couple of spokes; the fluttering eased, disappeared.

Blackbeard’s fleeing consort did not stand a chance against the
Sea Witch
, but the fools still led her a merry dance. She bowled along behind them for ten miles, Jesamiah deliberately holding back, herding them like a sheepdog drives the flock. Lulling them into hoping they could escape. Then suddenly he’d had enough of the game and swooping forward, overhauled them. They had to heave to and surrender. Sullen, awaiting their fate.

Going aboard, stepping down from the greater height of the
Sea Witch
’s varnished rails, Jesamiah made a cursory inspection of the smaller boat, but there was little of value to be plundered; a few kegs of rum, some salt pork. A pile of decent canvas hoarded in the sail locker, no doubt recently stolen from some poor wretch. Sea slugs such as these did not attack the French or Spanish, or ships with guns and weaponry. They went for coastal traders, small fry. And accumulated little of value to show for their trouble. Blackbeard himself attacked bigger fish, but as with all sharks, there were always the scavengers idling along behind.

There was also a pile of quality timber stacked aboard, suitable for replacing broken spars. Jesamiah ordered everything of value to be swung aboard
Sea Witch
.

If a vessel surrendered it was usual for the crew and passengers – beyond being lightened of their valuables – to be left alone, but Jesamiah had no intention of being soft-hearted with these scumbag miscreants.

He stood them in the waist while he mounted the narrow ladder to the quarterdeck. They huddled together, some too drunk to notice what was going on around them, others afraid, the majority grim-faced and resentful. He took his time to inspect the compass, which was poor quality, and to rummage through the stern locker where various flags and ensigns were crammed in jumbled disarray. His own were always neatly folded. Several, on close examination, were little more than moth-eaten rags, but a few would prove useful. A new English Jack, two Spanish colours and one French. He tossed them to Rue. Nothing else aboard was worth bothering with, for it was too dirty, valueless, broken or worn.

As if he had all the time in the world, he walked to the quarterdeck rail, leant his arms on it, scratched at his nose and tipped his hat to the back of his head. Surveyed the sour faces below him.

“Not much point in us boardin’ you,” he finally said using a sailor’s lazy drawl. “All you’re haulin’ is a pile o’ shite. Bit of a pathetic excuse fer pirates, ain’t ‘ee?”

The pirates shuffled from foot to foot, glowering at the men of the
Sea Witch
and the barrels of primed and cocked pistols and muskets pointing directly at them.

“Can any one of you give me a fokken good reason why I shouldn’t just sink this tub o’ lard right ‘ere an’ now? Send you all down to Jones’s locker?”

More shuffling, a few coughs, some muttering. Several crude comments about Jesamiah shoving himself up a dark place.

“No?” He stood up straight, scratched at his right buttock, then his crotch, and ambled to the lee rail where
Sea Witch
dozed alongside. “Might as well put you all out o’ yer misery then, eh?” He stepped up to the rail, grasped a halyard and prepared to swing himself to his own deck.

A voice cried out, desperate. “Sir! Cap’n Acorne Sir! I’ve a wife and bairns. Och, I did na’ have nay wish t’be aboard a pirate. I beg thee, fer pity’s sake t’ grant a Scotsman mercy.”

Pausing, Jesamiah studied his mainmast. That t’gallant shroud looked in need of attention. “How much are ye willin’ t’pay me fer y’life then, Jock?”

The man fumbled eagerly inside his shirt. “I’ve a pouch of silver.” Pushing his way through grumbling shipmates he held it towards Jesamiah. “I’ll pay fer me life, Captain. I’ll pay. Take me aboard y’fine ship an’ I’ll be o’ service however thee may wish.”

Slowly Jesamiah stepped down from the rail and descended the ladder into the waist. Walking towards the man he looked him up and down then held out his hand for the pouch, which he pocketed. “Any one else ‘oldin’ back on me with the specie?”

A hostile silence so thick it was solid.

Pushing his way through the crowd of ragged seamen, Jesamiah inspected each one closely, touched the occasional shoulder or nodded; “You. You. Aye an’ you. You.” Those chosen were shoved or kicked by his men to line up along the windward rail. Twelve in all.

“The rest of you, lower those boats and bugger off. The coast is that way.” He jabbed a finger westward. Withageneralscurrying, anxious-to-be-gone rush, the gig and longboat were swung out and lowered, men scrabbling down the hull cleats even before the vessels were secured.

“What about me?” the Scotsman protested, refusing to move. “You said you would have me as crew.”

“I said nothing of the sort. You go in the boats.”

“But –”

“But?” Jesamiah shoved his hands in his pockets, raised a single eyebrow.

Lamely the Scotsman indicated the selected men, “But you are taking those murderers and rapists, yet leavin’ me t’m fate?”

Very slowly Jesamiah strolled up to him. Leant forward and whispered in his ear. The Scotsman blanched and scuttled after the others into the boats.

Isiah came up from below with Nat Crocker. Gave a single nod. “All set Captain.”

“Very well. Let’s get on with this and be gone.”

Some of the men at the rail were grinning and nudging each other, tossing lewd gestures at their erstwhile companions as oars were shipped and they began to pull away. The coast was a long haul for those small boats; with no water, no food, only luck and skill would get them safe ashore. And this rabble possessed little of either. But they had the chance to survive, which was more than they usually gave their own victims who had failed to surrender.

The swaggering on deck came to an abrupt halt as Jesamiah’s men produced twelve lengths of rope, each one fashioned with a noose at one end.

“What the –?”

Jesamiah smiled benignly. “As the man said, murderers and rapists. I know you, John Chatham, and you Horace Skelton. Tunny. Ralf White, Bones Bradford. Oséas da Silva. I know you all and what you’ve done. How many innocent lasses have you raped Cyril Munk? And you, Dan Pikesley, how many children, how many little boys, how many terrified, screaming little girls who hadn’t even budded their tits did you bugger before slitting their bellies open?”

Pikesley returned the stare, eye to eye. “Enough t’satisfy m’need. Y’want t’try it Acorne. It’s better’n swivin’ a poxed harlot.”

“You’re filth. You are not even worth pissing on.” Jesamiah turned away, disgusted, and stepped aboard the cleanliness of his beloved
Sea Witch
.

“Hang them,” was all he said.

The twelve, with bound hands, kicked and struggled as the nooses tightened into the slow strangling death, their bodies evacuating piss, semen and faeces.

Those aboard the
Sea Witch
saw none of it, for they cast off and made way as soon as the twelfth man had been strung up.

In the solitude of his cabin, still cleared for action, Jesamiah sat on the wooden locker beneath the stern windows. There were no red velvet cushions and the paned windows were bolted up beneath the beams. It was cold with the wind streaming in. He gathered his coat tighter, called for Finch.

“We got any rum handy?”

“Aye. You be wantin’ some then?”

“No. I was just enquiring. ‘Course I do, you old faggot.”

Any sour reply Finch was about to make was cut short by a sudden commotion a quarter of a mile behind. Fire and black smoke mushroomed against the blue sky as the fuses set and lit aboard the sloop ignited barrels of gunpowder.

Sipping at the tankard of rum that Finch brought him, Jesamiah wondered whether any of the twelve had still been alive when she blew. He disliked hanging people, it was a slow, evil death. But then, all of those bastards had been evil. Not one of them deserved to live, and he’d had no intention of allowing the ones cast adrift a chance to return to their vessel and sail after him. Not that they had the wits or savvy to do so. Their captain was the only one who could navigate, and he, Dan Pikesley, had danced a jig at the end of a rope. Jesamiah hoped there was a Hell, for Pikesley deserved to rot there for what he had done to innocent children

“What’ll I do about ‘er?” Finch asked. Jesamiah looked blank.

“‘Er in the ‘old. Mrs Mereno. She’s screamin’ blue murder down there. Do I let ‘er out?”

Another sip of the rum. “Screamin’ y’say?” Jesamiah scratched at his scalp. “Nah, maybe leave ‘er there a while.”

“Cap’n?” Nat Crocker ducked into the cabin, he was taller than Jesamiah, a good six feet two inches in height. “We’re taking on water. One of those shots Blackbeard hit us with was lucky for him. Chippy wants to see you, urgent.”

The pumps were going, Jesamiah could hear the steady thump, thump. He stood quite still for a moment his head cocked on one side, listening to and feeling
Sea Witch
move. She was sluggish, reluctant. Almost – almost – he could hear her whimper, like a wounded animal crawling away, wanting to find the solace of darkness to lick her wounds.

“How much water?” he asked, finishing the rum in one gulp.

“Couple of feet.”

“Sod it, this puts paid to us hurrying back to finish Teach off. Stand the men down. We’ll have to sort him out another day.”

Going below to the hold Jesamiah stopped halfway down the ladder; raising his lantern he could see water slopping about. In the distance, where the hull curved inward towards the bow, the faint glow of a lantern glimmered. Voices.

“I reckon you’d best send someone to let Mrs Mereno out, Nat, ‘else she’s likely t’be swimmin.” Grimacing, Jesamiah stepped into the black, cold water, the movement sending a drowned rat bobbing away.

He made his way along the carpenter’s walk, the narrow space between the side of the ship and the tiers of stacked casks and barrels. He hated it, the darkness and the confined space. Several times he stopped, put his hand on the smooth wood of the inner hull, the unease of his ship giving him courage to move on, not turn back and run for the open space of the deck and the natural light of day. The life-rhythm movement beneath his sweating palm told him all he needed to know.
Sea Witch
was holed, she was wounded. If she were not helped, she would fill with water and sink. Would die. Every man, woman and boy aboard with her.

Near the bow the carpenter greeted him with a nod upwards that indicated the stream of water trickling down. “Damage to the hull just on the water line; each time we roll or a bigger wave hits us we ship more.” As he spoke,
Sea Witch
rolled, and water gushed in. “I can patch it easy enough, but I’m concerned, look ‘ere,” he pointed with his knife then poked it into the wood – the blade sinking in for over an inch. He withdrew the knife and more water seeped into the dent to run in a single line downwards and disappear into the foul water slopping around their legs.

Jesamiah took the knife, probed again. “D’you reckon something’s split? Backlash from the strike?”

“I reckon so. I’ll be needin’ a proper look. We’re due a careen anyways.”

Jesamiah grunted as he poked and pricked to either side of the seepage. Sound as a bell. They could not lay her up on a beach, empty her, send down the topmasts and give her a thorough overhaul just yet. For that, they had to be safe. Very safe. Careening within Blackbeard’s territory was about as unsafe as you could get. Especially now that they had poked the hornets’ nest with a very large stick.

“Would a few hours anchored in a river at low tide suit you?”

Chippy took the knife back, stored it safely in one of his leather apron’s capacious pockets. “Possibly. For a temporary measure.”

“Enough to get us to Virginia? My father’s plantation has a graving dock, he insisted on maintaining his own vessels.”

Chippy broke into a broad grin, “Couldn’t be better Cap’n. Couldn’t be better. But we’ll be havin’ t’do sommut about that hole and this crack first.”

“Fother a sail?”

“Aye, I reckon. It’ll get us to this ‘ere river of yours, if ’n we sail steady an’ don’t meet no storms or stop another ruddy ball.”

Curtly nodding, Jesamiah made his way back to the deck, calling for hands as he did so. “We’re fothering – get a heavy sail thrummed and over the side.”

The crew worked willingly and quickly, expertly pummelling coarse wool and hempen yarn into a mat-like surface then greasing and tarring it onto a spare sail. It took a while to heave the canvas over the side and pass it under the keel, to manoeuvre it into place and make all secure. If the water pressure did not force the tarred oakum into the openings and seal the leak, they would have to do it all over again with a second sail, and maybe a third. But the first held like a patched bandage. Would hold until they could make the quieter waters of the Pamlico River.

Sea Witch
had been returned to normality; the removable bulkheads of Jesamiah’s cabin bolted back into place, the square of carpet laid over the scratched wooden deck, his mahogany table set straight and laid with silver cutlery and china plate ready for dinner. The comfortable chairs were set in position, cushions plumped. In the galley, Finch had re-lit the cooking stove and the aroma of the captain’s dinner, frying mutton chops and roasting potatoes, was wafting through the ship.