English passengers (65 page)

So it was I found myself putting a sight on a world that I hadn’t seen for a good little while, and a rotten sort of world it looked, too. I knew those dirts had made a mess of my vessel but still I never supposed it would be so bad as this. A proper ghost ship she seemed, with her paint flaking and her deck timbers buckled. Why, she was worse, as even a ghost ship will have a full quota of masts. The
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had lost two, just as I had supposed, leaving a pair of stumps, like dead trees, while the foremast looked lonely as could be. Why, she was hardly like a sailing vessel at all anymore, being all sky and mad strewn wreckage. A tangle of ropes pulled taut over the side told me where the mainmast was, though I hardly needed telling, as that moment another wave sent it thumping into the ship’s timbers. That little mess would have put paid to the rudder, and leave the ship drifting like a dead thing. All in all we were now nothing more than a big wooden lumper of wreck, waiting to sink.

This took me to my next little piece of rottenness, which was quite the king of them all. At a moment like this any normal seaman, whether angel or pirate, will have only one thought, and that’s to save his vessel. Inside half an instant he’ll pick up the nearest axe and start chopping at wreckage before it sinks her. What was going on here was rather different. The Englishmen were all busy as beavers, for sure, but their delight was all in trying to lower the main boat. All in all it seemed they weren’t eager to clutter themselves with Manxmen, preferring to keep this a private ride just for themselves. I could see the shore, with a prettiest line of surf breaking, and though it was a few miles off it looked near enough to suit them nicely.

What a fine case of Englishman’s murder this was. Murder by
doing
nothing,
which is your Englishman’s favourite, I’m sure. Shooting or bludgeoning a shipload of men to death is such a dirtying sort of thing to do, as well as being legally awkward besides, so what could be prettier than to quietly set out for the shore and leave all this untidiness behind, handy as kittens drowning in a bucket. All my friend Potter needed to do was shut his eyes for a moment, dream up a smart little story to tell the curious, and, with a little gentle rowing, all his worries would be gone. He must, I supposed, be quite hugging himself beneath his beard. No wonder the two bodies at the pumps were raging and screaming so. The boys in the fo’c’sle must’ve heard them, as they were hammering and shouting fit to burst.

Not that the Englishmen were doing so well in their murdering. Truly, you never saw a gang of dirts less fit for messing with ships than these. All they had to do was lower a boat, which is hardly your most difficult piece of seamanship, but a proper pig’s ear they were making of it. The boat was hanging over the ship’s side, but only a foot or two, as it was nicely jammed. As for the Englishmen, Skeggs—who looked pale as death—was lying inside it with his head propped up on one of the rowing benches, while Hodges and Hooper stood beside him tinkering with the blocks, and Potter was facing them over the rail from the deck, a pile of guns and a leather carrying case at his feet. Was that our gold in there? Our gold that we’d sailed clean round the world to earn? The low mucks.

An ill-tempered gang of dirts they were, too, yelling at one another like drunks raging over the last swallow from the bottle. I suppose they were getting scared they mightn’t escape after all, and would accidentally murder themselves along with everyone else. The poor babes. If only they’d thought to ask, I could’ve told what was wrong, as I could see it with one glance. The blocks were nearly solid with rust while the ropes holding the boat were fraying like sheep’s hair. This was their own fault, too, seeing as it was them that had brought the ship into such a handsome state of ruin in the first place.

‘‘We must cut the ropes,’’ shouted Hooper.

‘‘But that’s madness,’’ Potter yelled back. ‘‘The boat could capsize when it hits the water.’’

If only I could get to the fo’c’sle and free the others, then we might have a chance. It wouldn’t be easy, though, with chains to carry and a
heap of guns lying at Potter’s feet. I was getting ready to have a try when I heard a shout of ‘‘Lord God who art in heaven, I pray to Thee, smite down thine enemies.’’ Strange to say I’d almost forgotten about the Reverend in these last moments. Here he came, striding across the deck, bold as brass. For a second I feared he might give me away, but no, he didn’t cast so much as a sneer in my direction, being far too intent on his own madness. It was high time he made himself somebody else’s nuisance for a change. Why, he might even come in handy, giving Potter somebody else to stare at.

‘‘Get back from here,’’ Potter shouted, as if he’d seen a ghost.

I didn’t wait but darted out from the stairway fast as I could, to the stump of the fallen mizzenmast, which I reached without getting shot even once. Getting to the fo’c’sle would be harder. I gave a wave to the two poor skeletons at the pumps to keep quiet.

I could hear Wilson droning behind me. ‘‘I must have this boat.’’

‘‘I’m telling you to get back.’’ Potter should have known better than to try giving orders to the Reverend.

‘‘God says it is mine.’’

‘‘God told you wrong.’’

Glancing back, I saw Potter waving his pistol at the Reverend. Not that it made any difference, as the only way he could’ve persuaded that old article was by putting a bullet through him. He must’ve wished he’d done just that, too. The next thing I knew Wilson uttered a kind of piping yell, then took a rush at the rail, and sort of scampered and hurled himself over, quite your flying vicar, landing himself nicely in the boat. The surprise, though, was what came next. The weight of him can’t have been much, being all skeleton like he was, but it was enough for those frayed ropes. One held and one gave, so the thing dropped down purest vertical. How Wilson held on I couldn’t say, but he did. The rest were less lucky, or less wilful. All of an instant Hooper, Skeggs and Hodges— and the oars too—were sprinkled nicely onto the ocean with pretty little splashes. I heard them wailing up from the water, already getting fainter, as the wind was carrying us away. Here was a wonder. Why, I could’ve shaken the Reverend by the hand for vanishing three quarters of Potter’s Englishmen quietly away like this. I didn’t wait but took my new chance. One more dash and I was standing before the fo’c’sle door. Dropping my
chains in a heap, I started pulling bolts free. A proper army of the rotten, murdering things there were, too, half of them tight with rust.

‘‘How dare you,’’ Potter shouted at the Reverend. Casting a quick glance back, I could see he looked undecided, now looking over the side, I suppose in the hope he might save his friends—though I could see no sign of them—now throwing a raging look at Wilson, as if he was trying to work himself up to shooting the old article. If that was his notion he was too slow. The second rope will have been straining nicely, having the whole of the boat’s weight to carry, and all of a sudden it snapped, dropping the boat with a mighty splash. That turned Potter’s face redder than his beard, and he leaned over the rail and fired his pistol empty. I couldn’t see if he’d had any luck, the boat being too close to the ship’s side, but his aim looked wild.

Not that I had time to dwell on such things. Finally I had the last bolt free, the fo’c’sle door was being pulled back open from inside and familiar bodies were staring out. Though, in truth, they were only just familiar. If I thought I was bad, they were seven times worse, as I’d never seen men so starved. Their faces looked like masks, while their arms and legs were hardly more than bones with a little scran of skin wrapped about them, like skeletons in stockings. Even China Clucas seemed half wasted away. If I needed any more rage inside me—which I didn’t—that gave me a fine dose. I was amazed they were all able to stagger out at all, especially the two that were half killed with scurvy. Then again, I suppose there’s nothing like being locked away and left to drown to give a man a bit of eagerness. In a moment we were freeing the pair lashed to the pumps.

Potter looked all raging amazement at the sight of us, shouting out, ‘‘Get back in there.’’ How fat he was compared to the rest of us.

I never gave an order, but it was as if we all knew what to do. We started stumbling towards him, the sick giving a shoulder to the worse.

‘‘One step nearer and I’ll shoot,’’ Potter yelled.

We were too raging to care. As we tottered closer, he grabbed up all the rifles from the deck, slinging three over his shoulders and grasping the fourth in one hand, while he had the revolving pistol in the other, so he looked a proper medical bandit. Here was a fine little battle so it was:
on one side nine Manx skeletons, one in chains, two hardly able to walk, with hardly a toothpick for weaponry among them; on the other a single Englishman pretending himself a whole army.

‘‘I will shoot.’’ He waved his rifle back and forth along the length of us, but it seemed as if we were just too many to choose from. For a moment he reached into his pocket, I guessed for more bullets for his pistol, but then sort of yelped, like a kicked dog, and, grabbing the leather carrying case, he darted away, guns clattering, to the stairs to the officers’ cabins. His rifles nearly stopped him, catching the hatch with a proper jarring that made him spit curses, but he managed to scamper down before we could reach him. ‘‘If any man steps down here I will shoot him,’’ he promised kindly. I could hear a scraping sound, of boxes being moved, so it seemed he was trying to make some kind of nest for himself

I let him be, having more urgent worries. ‘‘The wreckage,’’ I called out. I hardly need have troubled myself as China Clucas was already reaching for the axe. In just a few moments the mast and its mess were cut loose and drifting away, and Vartin Clague had the wheel to steady us. I took a quick glance over the rail at the timbers. A nasty sight they made, too, as the mast had scraped and bashed them something terrible, so I could only hope they wouldn’t cave in at the next big wave. Nor was this the finish of our troubles.

‘‘We’ll never get past that,’’ growled Brew. All this while that we’d been playing our games with the Englishmen the wind had been pushing the ship straight at England, and we were drifting nicely into a bay. Brew had his eyes on a long point jutting out into the ocean to larboard. ‘‘Even if we put more sail on the foremast, and it held, too—which I doubt it would—the wind’s too far round.’’

The sad thing was that he was right. Not in a thousand tries would we slip round that big chunk of rock. It seemed those Englishmen had done for my poor
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after all. The rottenness of it. Halfway round the world she’d taken us, and the other half too, and now she was to be broken on rocks of their own muck of a land. All that was left was to hope we wouldn’t go down with her. Spreading my chains over the fallen mizzenmast, I had China Clucas set to work with the axe, which
he did neatly enough, then snapping the rings off with Christian’s chisel. That was something, at least. After all this time shackled my arms felt light as air, so they kept sort of floating up without my intending.

‘‘Look, there’s the Reverend,’’ called out Kinvig.

Sure enough, there he was, sitting in the longboat a hundred yards distant, his hands clasped together for another bit of praying, just in case God was feeling neglected. His vessel being low in the water the wind seemed to be leaving him in peace, and he was drifting away with the current. By the looks of it he’d even clear the point. That fellow had the devil’s luck, no denying. Though I couldn’t believe he’d last long in the open sea, especially without oars. There was no sign of the other three.

We had none of his fortune. I took a look at the rest of the boats, but the fallen spars had done for them nicely, smashing two to splinters and giving the third a handsome crack stretching clean across her bow timbers. It seemed we’d just have to take our chances as best we could. We might be half an hour, we might be more, but it would be soon enough. It was hard to see how savage we’d have it, but the way surf was jumping at the shore looked hardly friendly.

That was when Brew came up with his question. ‘‘Where’s the gold?’’

What a fine little question that was. I’d thought those Englishmen had used up all their nuisance, but no, the doctor had found a sweet way of riling us even now. The rotten thief with his leather carrying case. Glancing down the hatchway, I could see he’d blocked up the door of the dining cabin with a heap of packing boxes. A rifle was sticking out from a hole in the middle.

‘‘Keep away,’’ he shouted. ‘‘One step nearer and I’ll shoot.’’

Taking a run down there wouldn’t be clever, that was clear as glass.

‘‘We could lower someone over the stern,’’ suggested Brew.

‘‘He’d be sure to see, and put a bullet through him.’’

‘‘How about the cannon?’’ wondered China Clucas, in a grim sort of voice. ‘‘We could just blast him.’’

One look put paid to that. The mizzenmast had landed clean on top of the thing, squeezing it flat as a rat in a mangle. But I had an idea now. ‘‘What about the contraband holds. Does he know about them?’’

Brew wasn’t sure. ‘‘He must know they’re there.’’

There was a sight of difference between knowing they were there and knowing how to get in, as the London customs had proved nicely. It would be a risk, for sure, especially seeing as we had no guns, but what was risk when we were about to go smashing into a rocky shore. ‘‘We may as well have a try.’’

‘‘Let me come,’’ offered China Clucas, picking up the axe.

He’d do as well as any for a jaunt like this. I took a belaying pin and we were all set. Aside from the dining cabin, the other way in was from the hold, so we opened up the main hatch. A proper lake of bilge water there was down below, slooshing through the ballast and licking at the empty store casks, and giving me a good soaking as I clambered down the rope. Fortunately it hadn’t reached those particular timbers on the wall. I heard a faint click as Kinvig pulled that certain cable, making them twitch, and they prized open nicely enough. Lighting a candle and peering in, I learned for sure why we hadn’t sunk or capsized. D’you know the contraband hold was all but dry, with just a little wash of water dribbling about in the bottom. We couldn’t have built the
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a better pair of floats if we’d wanted.