Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (144 page)

The timbers of the ship groaned and snapped in torment. The single storm lantern in the cabin, turned low, swung in dizzying circles. Félicité and Ashanti were not greatly affected by seasickness, as many were, even the hardened sailors, most likely because of the herb they chewed. Still, they stayed strapped in their bunks. To wander about was to invite broken bones in the pitching dimness as the ship wallowed and dived like a bottle cork in the waves. Through the bulkhead they could hear Valcour groaning, but could not go to him even if he would have accepted their help. Whether the sailors realized Ashanti was responsible for his illness, or whether they were kept too busy by the storm, no more was heard of accosting her. From the strange looks the men had given her before the weather worsened, she thought they half expected the young gentleman sharing Ashanti’s cabin to begin to share the same symptoms. They were admiring, intrigued, and perhaps consoled when she did not.

It occurred to Félicité as she lay staring at the swaying lantern to wonder why, if Ashanti could save her from Valcour, she had not performed the same service against Morgan. The answer was simple. Though she regretted the violence of Félicité’s initiation, the maid had not been dissatisfied with the man who had accomplished it.

The gray light of morning brought no surcease. Vindictive and frustrated, the storm harassed them through the day and into the endless Stygian welter of the third night.

There came a day of heaving seas and close-huddled horizons. They had lost a topmast, were dragging a sheet anchor, and were taking on water in a thousand oozing, pitchless leaks that caused the pumps to be manned around the clock. But they were as jauntily afloat as the bung from a wine barrel. A fire was started in the brick-lined firepit that had been allowed to go out during the rough seas, and all hands gathered around for a hot meal and a tot of rum before setting to work in earnest on tangled cordage, open seams, and sodden sail.

Valcour, it was reported, was able to take a little boiled beef and broth. Nighttime brought a rift in the clouds that permitted pulsing starlight to shimmer down over the water. The captain hurried top-side with his sextant. Taking a reading, he discovered they were not so far off their charted course as might be imagined, thanks to a graciously veering wind, and so they sailed on.

Félicité stood at the railing with her face turned to the warm and humid breeze. In waistcoat and shirtsleeves, she was still a little overheated. There was a trickle of perspiration between her shoulders and around her hairline, but it seemed best to go no further in her accommodation to the weather. She had just finished her turn at the pumps. As soon as she had rested from her exertions, she would be all right.

No one had ordered her to fall in and lend a hand. It had been the sidelong glances of sullen resentment that decided her. As the youth she appeared, fresh-faced, callow, and not above fifteen, little was actually expected of her, and yet it seemed best to appear willing.

“Wind-blown, rose-tinted of cheek, and in a pensive mood. Forgive me, young François, but you are too pretty to be a boy.”

Félicité turned to face Captain Bonhomme. Drawing on a pretense of affront to keep the alarm from her features, she fingered the hilt of Valcour’s sword. “I shall change, I’m sure.”

“Don’t, pray, draw steel against me! I meant no insult, and I am far too gone in fatigue from the last few days to fight you.”

His words were accompanied by a penetrating glance that did nothing to allay her fears. She had caught him watching her more than once since the storm, and could not help wondering if Valcour, still sharing his quarters, had taken the man into his confidence, or else let fall something in delirium. She looked away over the ink-blue water. “I’m sure you are a fine swordsman, M’sieu le Capitaine. Doubtless you could give me pointers if it so pleased you.”

The captain lifted his shoulders with Gallic eloquence. A trace of derision was in his tone as he replied. “There may have been a time. No more.”

“And yet you lead these men.” She nodded over her shoulder at the men sprawled on deck, those not on the watch engaged in sleeping, fishing, splicing rope, or busily scraping at whale’s teeth.

“Shall I tell you how I came to be a buccaneer, in the hope that you will confide the tale of why you are on the Raven clutching at the coattails of Valcour Murat? It is soon done. A younger son without a sou to my name, I became a mousquetaire at court through influence. There I caught the eye of the young wife of an old and rich nobleman. Merrily and often, I put the horns of a cuckold on his forehead, even to the point of making my bastard his heir. He noticed, finally, what was making his wife as happy as a singing cricket. Rather than trounce me in a public admission of his lackluster performance as a husband, something he was by no means certain he could manage, he arranged for a lettre de cachet. As you may know, such pieces of paper carry the authority of the king condemning the person named to be taken on sight and clapped into the darkest depths of the Bastille without hope of trial. I am not a man who craves to be forgotten, nor do I bear any resemblance to a mole. Warned by my mistress, I left Paris ahead of the gendarmes. The West Indies seemed a healthier section of the world. But having made my way here, I found myself cast onto these sandy shores without the means to sustain myself.”

“A most romantic tale,” Félicité commented.

He sent her a swift glance. “Isn’t it? A bit more, and I am done. As a boy, I had spent a number of summers at my father’s chateau on the coast of Normandy, where I went out with the fishing fleet. From those hardy men I learned the art of dead reckoning and something of sailing. I also met a man who had once been a prisoner of the Arabs, and learned the uses of the astrolabe and sextant. It sometimes seems these things are meant to be. I became a pirate.”

Though the story was a bit glib and polished, there was still enough address in the captain’s manner for there to be some chance of it being true. “So you became the leader of a band of escaped felons, deserters from half the navies and armies of Europe, and lately, the men turned off from both now that England, France, and Spain are no longer at war. Regardless, you insist it is not fear that makes these men obey you, but respect for your knowledge of navigation?”

“When any group of men gather, there must be rules to govern their conduct, else they will be forever robbing and killing each other with little hope of making anything of themselves as a coalition, and with less of sleeping safe at night. In the hundred years and more that there have been corsairs in these waters, the rules that govern their acts and actions have become barnacled with tradition. Shall I recite them for you?”

She had nothing else to do, and it was better than standing alone, collecting stares. She gave a nod.

“Très bien. These then are the articles of agreement signed by the men who come aboard the Raven. One, every man has a vote in affairs of the moment, has equal title to the fresh provisions and strong liquor at any time seized, and may use them unless a scarcity makes it necessary for the good of all to vote a retrenchment. Two every man is to be called fairly in turn by list on board of prizes, because they are allowed a suit of clothes over and above their proper share. But if one defraud the company of the value of one dollar in plate, jewels, or money, the punishment is marooning. If robbery takes place between two crewmen, the guilty one shall have his nose and ears slit and be set ashore not on some inhabited place but where he shall surely suffer hardship. Three, no person shall game at cards or dice for money at sea. Four, the lights and candles shall be put out at eight o’clock at night. If any remain inclined for drinking, they shall do so on the open deck. Five, all shall keep their pistols and cutlasses clean and fit for service. Six, no women allowed. If any man be found carrying any of the sex to sea disguised, he is to suffer death—”

Félicité flung him a quick look. “Where does that leave Ashanti, my — the Negro maid?”

“For the moment, she is listed as a passenger and, like you, a dependent of Murat. Later, who knows? Of course, she is also not in disguise. Where was I? Ah, yes, article number seven. Desertion of the ship or quitting quarters in battle is to be punished by death or marooning. Eight, no striking another on board ship. Every man’s quarrel shall be ended on share with sword and pistol, one or both. Nine, no man shall talk of breaking up their way of living unless each has shared a thousand pounds of goods. If any man shall lose a limb or become cripple in the common service, he shall have eight hundred dollars out of the public stock, and for lesser hurts proportionally. Number ten, the captain and quartermaster shall receive two shares in a prize; the sailing master, boatswain, and gunner, one share and one half; other officers, one share and one quarter; sailors, one. In these few laws there is a code of honor of sorts, however hard you must look for it.”

“The quartermaster is Valcour, I know, but the Raven has the other officers you mentioned?”

“Most, yes, though I cannot blame you for not being able to pick them out from the others. As quartermaster, Murat is the voice of authority. He alone can order a flogging; according to Mosaic Law, forty lashes less one. And he is the first man to board a captured prize to make the decision of what will be set aside for the company’s use. In theory, the captain should be the military leader of the ship, with absolute power in time of chase or battle, while the sailing master should be in charge of navigation as well as the setting of canvas. In practice, I share my leadership with Valcour while I handle the lesser post as well. Sometime soon the crew may decide I am not worthy of the command and replace me. I shall not repine. The days of the buccaneers are numbered. Every year there are fewer ports, fewer places where we are welcome, more ships of the Spanish guarda de costas to chase us down, and more and better guns on the prizes we seek to capture. I have been lucky; I am still a whole man, if sometimes put on the rack by fevers. I have my sight, and my sanity, and now and then I think I have tried the patience of le bon Dieu long enough, forcing him to protect my miserable hide. It is time to end it.”

“And what will you do?” Félicité asked.

The captain smiled. “Who knows? But enough of me. You were going to tell me how you came to be aboard.”

Félicité had an uncomfortable moment. As she sought for an answer, however, there came from above them the long-drawn-out cry, “Land, ho! Land away to starboard!”

They swung to see a dark smudge on the horizon, like a low-lying storm cloud tinged with green. Félicité frowned. “What landfall is this? I expected none for days more on this route to France.”

“France? What can you mean, François Lafargue? Ahead of us is our destination, the only one we have ever had from the moment we left the Mississippi River.”

“But surely—” she began.

“I don’t know what you expected, mon petit ami, or where you meant to go, but ahead of you is where the Raven drops anchor, one of the last refuges of those of the black flag, the island of Las Tortugas.”

12

LAS TORTUGAS, THE TURTLE ISLANDS. On the same evening of land in the chain, none of any great size. The Raven dropped anchor in the curving shelter of the harbor of the largest. Called Grand Cayman for the Carib word describing the giant iguana lizards that made it their home, it stretched before them, a miniature paradise of waving palm trees, white sand beaches, and blue-green seas, like an emerald in a froth of lace worn on the background of a lady’s turquoise gown. There was a village of sorts near the port, whose inhabitants were mainly British, but if it had a name, none could agree on what it was. From the huddled shacks pelted a stream of children of all ages, colors, and nationalities as the ship was sighted. They swam out to catch bow and stern lines from the lugger, taking the hawsers in and belaying them around the pilings of the rickety pier so that the ship could be winched up to it.

By the time this feat had been accomplished the wharf and the beach beyond were crowded with calling, laughing women, with vendors selling fresh oranges and limes and hot meat pies, with pitchmen from the taverns and gaming dens, with merchants calling out to the men on the forecastle, asking if they had taken prizes. The sailors at the creaking winches roared out a ribald chantey. Dogs barked, pouring from behind and inside of the tumbledown thatched huts and driftwood-and-canvas-covered hovels. Overhead, gulls whirled with piercing cries and frigate birds swept the blue with triangular black wings. And the gentle trades wafted the smells of decaying fish, rotting fruit, and open sewers upon the warm, somnolent air.