Pirate Freedom (18 page)

The Spanish captain said no.

I asked the black man if he was the captain's slave, and when he said yes, I explained that he was free now. We had taken the captain's ship, so everything he had belonged to us. That made him our slave, and we freed him. If he wanted to join us, he could.

The Spanish captain looked like he wanted to kill me, but had sense enough to keep his mouth shut.

"You make joke?"

I shook my head. "You want to be a pirate? Fine!" I slapped his back. "Welcome to our crew." I took one of my pistols out of the sling and handed it to him. "You're a pirate."

He took it and turned. He must have cocked it as he turned, because it was very quick—turn and bang! He shot the Spanish captain, so that was two fewer in the boats.

When the rest of the Spaniards were gone, we held a meeting and decided to sail the prize to Port Royal, sell it, and split the money. I made Jarden prize captain and kept the black man on the
Rosa
, since he knew how she sailed already. His name was Mzwilili, but I generally thought of him as Willy and sometimes I called him that. A lot of guys look tougher than they are. Willy was tougher than he looked, something you do not see a lot of.

"You sent him away because you were afraid he would take me," Azuka said, and pouted. She was supposed to be helping with a new dress.

I shook my head. "That's between you and him."

"Also the sea. Much sea between us, because of you."

"Okay, I'll send you over in the jolly."

At that, Novia laughed and stabbed the cloth with her needle.

"I will not have you to protect me there, Chris."

"Willy will protect you."

"He is new man." Azuka giggled. "All will be against us."

I sat down and grinned at her. "I can see you're worried sick."

"I am not worried, because you will not send me away. I can make you happy every day. Estrellita will not do that."

Novia said, "There are knives enough on this ship for both of you." She had not looked up from her sewing.

"Sure," I said. "I've got one already."

The sewing dropped into her lap. "For your backs, imbéciles!"

"That does it," I told Azuka. "I'm sending you over tomorrow morning. Now get out of here."

In the morning the
Rosa
was nowhere in sight. I talked it over with Rombeau and Dubec. Both of them said she was probably ahead of us. Rombeau said that Jarden was the impetuous type and had probably sailed harder that night than he and Dubec had. Dubec thought Jarden was probably going to try to beat us to Port Royal, sell the
Rosa
, and split with the money. Both of them said we ought to set more sail and catch up.

I thought it over and ordered all sails furled. I had two good reasons, and I have generally found that if you can think of two good reasons for doing something you ought to do it.

The first was that I wanted to make one of my jib sails for the
Magdelena
like we had on the
Windward
, only bigger. It had worked fine and given us more speed, and I could not see a single reason why it would not work on
Magdelena
, too. As unhandy as our crew was, I did not want to have a lot of sailcloth laid out on deck and half the watch working on that while we were under sail, but this would give me a fine chance to get one made and bent.

The second was that I knew that even without a jib, the
Magdelena
could sail rings around the
Rosa
.
Magdelena
was built for speed and had a clean bottom now.
Rosa
was built to carry freight and to sail with a small crew. If
Rosa
had fallen behind us, she would catch up in three or four hours, tops. If she had gotten ahead, well, we were still a couple of days out of Port Royal. Maybe more. We could wait until noon and still get there before
Rosa
did.

The sea was not dead calm, as I remember, but you had to look for the chop to notice one. I explained my jib design to Rombeau and told him how well it had worked, and he got his watch to making one. Dubec pointed out that there was a stay on the mainmast, too. If the jib worked on the foremast stay, what about putting a sail on the mainmast stay? I said that was a great idea—which it was—and promised we would try it.

Sure enough, here came the
Rosa
about the middle of the morning. When she was close enough, Jarden hailed us and said there was somebody on board I might want to talk to. Should he send him over?

I said, "No, I'll come over myself, and you'd better furl all sails so as not to get ahead of us."

This time I had four reasons for deciding the way I did. If you ever read this far, you will have guessed the first already. I wanted to take Azuka over before she and Novia really got into it.

The second was that I wanted to talk to Jarden about keeping up and hoisting lanterns and so forth. And the third was that I wanted to give the watch time to finish my jib.

The fourth was probably the most important of all: I wanted to find out what was going on. We had let the Spanish crew have all
Rosa
's boats when we had captured her, so how was Jarden planning to send anybody over to me?

When we got there, there was a boat bottom up on the forward hatch. Jarden had a guy I had never seen before up on the quarterdeck with him. He was short and stocky and had a bristly gray beard and the look of a man who had done quite a few things in his life. "This is Antonio," Jarden told me. "He says he is not Spanish but Portuguese. He wants to make one with us."

I shrugged. "Maybe we can use him. Where'd you find him?"

"He was in that boat you were looking at, Captain. There were five others in there with them, all Spanish. They were out of water. I got them on board and gave them some."

I asked Antonio whether he understood French, and when he said, "Un peu," I asked him to talk some Portuguese.

He did, telling me where he was from and his family and so forth. I do not know Portuguese, but it was near enough to Spanish that I could guess at most of it. And I could certainly tell that it was not some made-up gibberish but a real language he knew well.

So I said, "That's Portuguese all right. Now let's hear your Spanish."

His Spanish was not as good—better than his French, but I could tell he had not grown up talking like that. After that I asked Jarden where the rest of the Spanish were, and he said he had killed them and thrown them over the side.

I felt bad about it and I still do. I had just been hit with one problem, and now I had two. The new one was that I wanted to give Jarden what for in a mild and good-mannered sort of way—you know, three Our Fathers and five Hail Marys. I could not do that up on his own quarterdeck with Azuka and eight or ten of his men in earshot.

The other problem, about five seconds older, was that I wanted to talk to Antonio quite a bit, and it was pretty clear that I was going to have to talk Spanish to him if I wanted to learn much. It would not be too bad for Jarden to hear me rattling away in Spanish, but I did not want his crew to. If they got to thinking I was really Spanish, they would get that across to my crew pretty quick. When they did that, I would be in the soup.

So I told Jarden I wanted to talk to him and Antonio in the captain's cabin. It turned out to be one of the worst ideas I have ever had, but that is what I did. If I had it to do over again—well, I could use up lots of paper writing about that, but what is the use?

We went into the captain's cabin and sat down, Jarden and me on chairs and Antonio on the bunk. Azuka wanted to come in, too, but I chased her.

I started on Antonio, asking my questions in French then switching to Spanish for things he did not understand. There is no use writing down all that. Here is the gist.

"You and some Spaniards were in one boat when Captain Jarden picked you up?"

"Sí, Captain."

"What happened? How did you come to be there?"

"We were taken by pirates, Captain. They spared us, putting us into that boat, but gave us only one small keg of water. We had been at sea four days and three nights when Captain Jarden took us on board."

I turned to Jarden. "Why did you take them on board if you meant to kill them? You must have known they were Spanish."

He sighed. "I need seamen, Captain. The men I have must be shown everything. I hoped some would join us, as this one did."

"The rest refused?"

He nodded.

"They would tell you nothing?"

"Nothing of value, no."

"Did any of them speak French? How did you question them?"

"Through Antonio here. I told them quite directly that we would kill them unless they gave us the information of good and engaged with us. I do not think they believed I would do it."

"I wish you hadn't. I might have gotten something from them." I returned to Antonio. "Did they believe him? What do you think?"

He shook his head.

"Did you?"

He fingered his beard, which looked as stiff as a brush. "No, Captain."

"But you joined us anyway?"

"I thought he would return them to the boat, Captain. I had sat enough in the boat."

"You were their leader." It was a guess, from his age.

"No, Captain. Captain Lopez was."

"Who might have told us a lot. Merda di cane!"

I took a deep breath, leaned back, and made a steeple of my fingers. "Let's start at the beginning. What were you doing on a Spanish ship?"

"Working, Captain." He spread his hands. "I had no ship, and this one paid. Not well, but enough."

"Where did you come aboard?"

"At Lisboa, Captain. That is my home. The
San Mateo
unloaded cacao there. I came looking for a berth, and we agreed."

The way he said that had given me a hint. "You were one of the mates?"

"No, Captain. I was Sailing Master."

I had not heard of that, but it sounded good. I said, "What can you do, Sailing Master? What are your skills?"

"On a ship, Captain? Everything."

"Carpenter?"

"Sí, Captain. If there is no carpenter aboard."

"Make sails?"

"If you have no sailmaker, Captain."

Jarden asked, "What of treating wounded men?"

Antonio shook his head. "No better than you, Captain."

"You cannot do everything in such a case."

Antonio shrugged. "I have done it, but I have seen other men do it better."

I asked, "Can you navigate?"

He smiled. "Sí, Captain. I am a skilled navigator."

"Can you teach others to navigate?"

He rubbed his beard again. "It is long since I have done that, Captain. But yes. Where there are instruments, I can."

Jarden told me, "You can navigate already."

"I know," I told him, "but Rombeau can't, and neither can you. I could teach you as much as I know, but Antonio here may know more than I do. For sure, he'll have more time to do it than I will."

"I ought to be on deck," Jarden said. "Are you about finished?"

"Almost." I motioned toward the door. "Go ahead if you want to." Actually I wanted him out. With him gone I could have spoken straight Spanish. I knew that better, and it would have saved a lot of time.

"I shall wait until you finish in that case."

"Swell. Antonio, did you offer to join the pirates who took the
San Mateo
?"

He shook his head.

"Why not? You were willing to join Captain Jarden here."

"Captain Burt wanted only young men, Captain, and wanted no married men. I am married and no longer young."

I had hardly gotten past the second word. "Wait up! Captain Burt was the one who took your ship?"

"Yes, Captain. He was."

Jarden said, "Do you know him?"

I nodded. "He's an old friend. I'd like to hook up with him, if—"

Right then is when they started shouting out on deck.