Pirate Freedom (7 page)

That was that. In the morning I gave the padre his guitar back and went down to the quay. The
Santa Charita
was out of dry dock and fitting out, and the captain took me back like he said he would. I was glad of it, because I knew that if I went back to my room in the inn I was going to jump. It was four floors up and cobblestones down below, so it would probably have killed me. I had needed a knife before, and I bought a regular sailor's knife with the money I had left—a big folding knife with a straight edge for cutting rope and a folding marlinspike. Every time I looked at the wooden handle of it, I would think of the padre's guitar. They were not really the same, but I did. I lost it when they chained me up on the
Weald
.

It took us another ten days to finish fitting out and load cargo. The cargo was mostly tools for carpenters and blacksmiths and so on, but there was a lot of classy stuff too, bolts of China silk and good clothes.

We felt pretty classy ourselves, with fresh paint on all over, the ship recaulked, new sails, and new rigging. We shook out for a couple of days to make sure everything worked. I got seasick in the forecastle and got knocked down for it, and when I felt better I had it out with that guy. I was younger and faster, I had more reach, and I meant to kill him. He was stronger and maybe forty pounds heavier, and he just about killed me. Eventually I got him down, and pretty soon he begged for mercy. When he did, I let him up. It takes a lot to make a sailor beg.

ABOUT HALFWAY ACROSS
the Atlantic we ran into a storm. Some of the other guys said they had been in worse, and my guess is they were telling the truth. That one was plenty bad enough for me, and I know the captain thought it might sink us. For three days and three nights, it bounced us around and rolled us like a ninepin. One time there was green water three feet deep in the waist. We lost a man overboard, and just about lost another one—the other one being me. Nobody could have slept on that ship, we just passed out when we got into our hammocks. We were dripping wet, but it did not matter because the weather deck was leaking water onto us anyway. Sometimes we got an hour or two of sleep before somebody yelled, "All hands!" Most often it was more like fifteen minutes.

We were under bare poles, but things kept breaking or blowing loose. Whenever a sail came loose, we had to try to furl it again before the storm tore it up. Sometimes we got it in, and sometimes we did not. All the standing
rigging got soaked, which made it longer. That meant all the stays were loose, and we might lose one or both our masts when she rolled. We had to try to tighten everything up, working in the dark even when it was daytime, with the rain driving in our faces and breakers coming over the rail. I do not know how hard that wind blew, but when it got hold of anything you just saw it for an instant before it disappeared forever.

I did not pray then—I was too busy and too tired. I would have let the storm kill me, if it had not been for the other men in our crew. I did not like most of them, and those I liked I did not like much. But there was no time to think about that. We were us, and if our ship went down we would die.

When the storm finally ended in warm weather, blue skies, and sunshine, it was half a day before any of us had energy enough to bring out our hammocks and spare clothes so they could dry. We just slept on deck. That evening we got the first hot food we had seen in four days. It was the best the cook could do, a hash of fresh beef, salt pork, ship's bread, onions, and tomatoes, with a lot of garlic. There was wine, and I remember old Zavala grinning at me over his. He had lost about half his teeth.

A lot of things may have happened between then and the next time I remember, but they cannot be important things or I would be able to think of them. We worked on the ship all watch, every watch, trying to fix up as much of the damage as we could.

One night somebody shook me awake and yelled at me to get out on deck. There was another man with him who had a cutlass in one hand and a lantern in the other, and I did not know either of them. All I could think about was where they might have come from.

Outside, they made us line up. Like I said, I have forgotten a lot that happened between the storm and that night, but I remember that night as well as anything that has ever happened in my life. It was overcast, no moon and just one or two stars peeping though tears in the clouds. A little swell to the sea and the
Santa Charita
rolling to it just enough to feel alive. Five or six or maybe eight or ten lanterns lit, one run halfway up the mainmast and one on the quarterdeck railing and looking like it was going to slide off any minute. Pirates holding the rest, a lantern in one hand and a cutlass or a pistol in the other.

I had gotten into line and everything before I saw there were two bodies on the deck. One was old Zavala. I kept staring at the other one, trying to figure
out who it was. His face was turned away from me, and he was not wearing anything but a long shirt.

Somebody—a voice I did not know—said, "Let's have another light over here," and I kind of jumped. That was because it seemed to me that I
should
know it, and because the words were in English.

"There's many a one would cut your throats," the man who spoke English said. Then another man said the same thing in Spanish and louder.

"You've been lucky. Very lucky. You've fallen into the compassionate hands of Captain Bram Burt. Any man who disobeys or lies to me will lose his life a damned sight quicker than a court would kill him. But the ones who obey and tell me the truth will live, and some of them will even get a chance to grow rich while they're still young enough to enjoy it."

When the Spanish translation came, all of us were looking at each other. Before that I had been looking at him, trying to remember where I had seen that round face and long blond mustache before. If you read this far, you will have gotten it a lot quicker than I did.

He pointed to the dead man in the long shirt. "This was your captain. I know that because he came out of the captain's cabin. What other officers are there on this ship? Watch-keeping officers."

Señor took a step forward. He looked scared enough to faint, but he sounded brave when he said, "Only I."

Capt. Burt unhooked a pistol from his belt, cocked it fast and easy, and leveled it at Señor. "You had better call me 'Captain.'"

Señor touched his forehead. "Sí, Capitán."

"You can navigate?"

"Sí, Capitán."

"Who else can?"

Señor's mouth opened, but nothing came out.

I raised my hand and said in English, "I can, a little bit, sir. Nobody else."

"En verdad, Capitán. Nadie."

Capt. Burt was looking at me and paid no attention to Señor. "You—put down your hand." He raised his voice. "Now I want every married man to raise his hand. Don't lie to me. Every married man."

After it was said in Spanish, most of the hands went up, including Señor's.

"I see. You married men stay where you are. Single men, over to the starboard rail and sit down."

We did as we had been told. There were only four of us. Two pirates watched us there for what seemed like an hour.

While we sat there, the other pirates were getting the boat into the water and getting the married men into it, with a keg of water and a string of onions. We could not see the boat until it pulled away. When it did, it was just a sort of darker shadow on the sea, but I knew it had to be jammed full of men and ready to sink the first time the sea got rough. There had been sixteen men in the starboard watch and eight in the larboard watch, plus the captain and Señor, so twenty-six men. Two had been killed that I knew about, and I think that was all. We four had stayed on board. So twenty men jammed into a boat I would have thought could not carry more than a dozen.

"Listen to me," Capt. Burt said when he got back to us, "and listen sharp. You may join my crew if you wish. If you do, each of you will take an oath, and your lives will be forfeit should you break it. When you've taken that oath, you'll share in our gains just as these men do. You'll eat and drink with us and be accounted a full member of our crew. If you don't, you'll be put ashore on the next deserted coast we reach. Now I want every man willin' to join us to stand."

He stared hard at me while the other man was repeating what he had said in Spanish, but I did not get up. The others did, but I did not.

After that they tied my hands, and I sat there for hours. I asked the guard if I could lie down. He said yes, and I was about asleep when they got me up and brought me to the captain's cabin.

Capt. Burt was in there. So was his sea chest and all his stuff, which was a lot. There were two chairs, and he told me to sit down in the empty one, which I did.

"You're the Jerseyman I talked to in Veracruz, ain't you?"

I mumbled that I was.

"Thought so." He took a silver snuffbox out of the blue, brass-buttoned coat I was to know so well, took a pinch, and said, "You know my name, but I've forgotten yours. What is it?"

I told him again, calling him Capt. Burt.

"Right. You speak good Spanish."

I nodded.

"French, too. Quite a bit of French."

I answered him in French, saying that I did, but that no one was likely to take me for a Frenchman.

"You can navigate?"

"A little. I never said I was an expert."

"I want you, Chris. I've got three already, but I'd be glad to trade 'em for you. What would it take to get you to join?"

I tried to think whether there was anything.

"Your own ship? You'd be captain, reporting to me. I'd claim a captain's share of anything you took on your own, but the rest would be yours."

I shook my head. "It's stealing, Captain. Stealing and murder. I won't do it."

Burt sighed. "You're a gentleman, Chris, whether you know it or not. Give me your parole, and I'll cut those ropes. Givin' your parole means you won't try to get away, 'pon your honor."

I nodded. "Cut me loose, and I won't try to get away, I swear it to God."

"On your honor."

"Right. I swear it on my honor."

He pulled out a dirk and showed it to me. "My ma gave this to me when I joined His Majesty's Navy."

I said it looked like a good one, because it did.

"It is." He used it to cut the rope around my hands. "Sheffield steel, and this black handle's ivy root. The mountin's are silver. We weren't rich, you twig? My pa's a grocer. I know it must have cost my old ma every penny she had."

I was rubbing my wrists.

"Why do you think she did that?"

"Because she was proud of you." It hurt me to say that, but I did.

Capt. Burt nodded. "She was. She was proud of me 'cause I was goin' to fight for my king and my country. It's your country, too, Chris."

I knew that it was not, but it seemed better not to say so.

"And that's what I'm doin'. Ever been paid half of nothin'?"

I did not understand what he meant, but I shook my head.

"I have. A midshipman's pay's the kind of money you'd throw to a beggar. You don't join for pay, eh? You join for prize money, and if you're lucky it can be rum quids. My ship was laid up and me put on half pay. Meanin' half of nothin'."

I said, "What did you do?"

"You're seein' it." Capt. Burt grinned. "I did this."

He jumped up. "Listen here, Chris. Spain hates us and we hate Spain. The
only reason we're not at war with 'em is that we're not strong enough to fight 'em yet. The only reason they're not at war with us is that they've all they can do to hold down the savages over here. My men and I rob Dago ships and Dago towns. How long do you think we could keep it up if His Majesty were to tell the governor of Jamaica to clap me in irons?"

I did not know and said so.

"Per'aps a year. Not a day more than that, and it could be a lot less. Hear me now, Chris. Back before Cromwell, Spain set out to conquer us. Their king sent the biggest bloody fleet anybody's ever seen, and we only beat 'em off by the skin of our teeth. If things had been just a bit different, if Drake hadn't been around, or certain others, they'd have beat us."

I can still see him standing there staring at me, his thumbs hooked into his wide belt, and two big guns hooked on to it too. If he had been an inch taller, he would have had to stoop a little under the deck beams, and he had the look men get when they have killed people they have talked to and drunk with. (Maybe I have it, too, since I have done those things. I do not know.)