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In a Cape Town counting-house, as over-worked clerks take a break from reckoning up merchants' money, a stooped, ink-stained figure appears at the door to see what all the alarm is about. The senior clerk looks out over the bay, and sees the pirate ships massing to the attack with a rather guilty lift of the heart. This is the stuff that pen-pushers' dreams are made of...
Abandoning work, the little official runs down the hill to get closer to the action, wondering secretly all the time if there might be a vacancy on some freebooter's ship for a scholarly supercargo. Seeing the world is over-rated, no doubt -- but just for once it would be fun to do something out of the ordinary.
Down on the water-front, crews from the pirates' cutters and longboats are swarming up onto the quays as their ships engage in a long-range gunnery duel with the naval squadron supposedly defending the town. Nobody thought to watch for a landing party, and now it is too late...the fuddled militia swarm down from their barracks to repel the pirates. The clerk, obviously harmless and largely overlooked in the melee, almost gets a crack over the head from the butt-end of a pike and has to dodge hastily into the shelter of a warehouse door. Maybe this is a bit too exciting?
Dutch frowns. The militia are putting up quite a fight.
She sees a clerk stumbling back into a warehouse, and raises an eyebrow. Hmm... let's have a look-see.
Seeing the looming figure of the pirate captain in the doorway, all beribboned and blood-bedraggled, Igenlode lets out a nervous squeak on being dragged out into the light.
"Please, I'm unarmed...I can show you where the money is..."
"You're too kind, mate," Dutch says with an evil grin. "But do hurry. I have a ship to get back to."
She lets go of the clerk. "After you!"
A meaningful cough. "Oh, and please don't attempt to run off. Daggers are good for throwing as well as stabbing. Savvy?"
"Er, comprenny, yes - yes, of course -"
Sweating with the imagined prick of the dagger-blade (or possibly the real dagger; the pirate is so close behind it's hard to be sure), the little clerk scurries back up towards the commercial quarter. Behind them, the uproar of the fight is beginning to diminish. It's not just distance that is responsible for the slackening din. Pent up for days within sight of land and the fresh provender they so badly need, the freebooters are waging their assault with a fury that has begun to overwhelm the opposition.
Out in the bay, Captain Hunter's squadron, signalling over the horizon, has hauled its wind and is attempting to break off the action and bear away southwards. Both the defenders and the pirate vessels are assuming this to be a sign of capitulation, to widespread dismay on land and rejoicing afloat. Already some of the larger ships are bringing their cannon to bear on the town's defences, while other crews, eager for fresh prizes to swell the fleet, attempt to mount a pursuit of Hunter's retreating ships. There is a momentary danger of complete confusion.
Meanwhile Igenlode, puffing and panting, is badly out of condition, stockings tumbling into wrinkles around skinny legs as the pirate captain and clerk hasten up the hill. Dutch is merciless, pressing the exhausted guide on up to the counting-house with threats and curses. The two arrive on the threshold in a billow of hot air and hubbub from the fighting below, as the door slams open and the noonday sun streams across the floor.
"Everybody up!" the senior clerk manages. It is barely a squeak, punctuated by the dagger's jab. Dozens of pale faces turn towards them. "Drop your ledgers. Someone get the vault keys. Break out the cash..."
The other clerks stare at the scene, their minds registering what is going on, but unable to decide on a proper reaction.
Dutch orders them, flashing the dagger as incentive, "You heard him. Do it!"
"Good God!" remarks a chubby man in a corner of the room at the sound of Dutch's voice, raising his nose in disgust. "It's a woman!"
"Of course I'm a woman, love. Some of us are born that way," replies Dutch sarcastically. "But if you'd care to join the ranks, I'll be happy to oblige." With an evil grin, Dutch aims the dagger at another part of his body to demonstrate, before bringing it up to Igenlode's neck. "Now get the money, and hurry. I will not ask again."
Finally the clerks begin to move, bringing the money, all in small purses of equal value, out of the vault and piling it onto the desk nearest their boss and the pirate.
Igenlode, still sweating, is trying to cope with the situation, and, seeing the money being piled up, starts to worry about the effect its loss will have. His life could be ruined, and all because of his misplaced wish for adventure.
"Very good. Now, put the money in a bag."
The clerks stare, as if not understanding the simple order.
"A bag!" stresses Dutch. She nudges her head in the direction of one of the clerk's fancy leather bags for documents. "That will do. Best use two. I wouldn't want to lose any of your precious possessions."
Reluctantly, two clerks follow the instructions. The money was one thing, but their own bags...
With her free hand, Dutch accepts the bags and hangs them around her neck, one on each side. She lowers the dagger, hissing "Don't move, love!" in a trembling Igenlode's ear, and walks backwards towards the door.
"Gentlemen, you are really too kind. I should visit Cape Town more often. Ta!"
Just before Dutch turns around to open the door, it is opened from the outside, and hits her from behind.
"Didn't I tell you I saw one of them heading this way?" Willem Klaasz, massive in a broad-shouldered coat, glares round his counting-house with a jerk of one thumb over his shoulder to summon the men behind him. Half a dozen liveried servants, all of them fine strapping fellows with an assortment of improvised bludgeons and knives, follow his wordless nod to seize upon Dutch, who is still staggering from the unexpected blow.
The pirate fights like a wild-cat, but the weight of the ill-gotten loot is too much to ignore, and she is soon held overpowered and furious in the grip of the proprietor's followers. Klaasz gives her a scathing look from head to toe, taking in every bauble and every rent in her stolen silks. "Maybe the Company is too supine to hold the defence of the town against scum like this, but I for one plan to give them something to remember. Tie the strumpet up."
He tosses a hank of thin cord to the nearest of his men, who begins to bind Dutch tightly despite her struggles. The cords cut into her wrists, and sweat stings the abrasions. She spits an oath at the leader of her captors. His lips tighten, but he gives no other sign of acknowledging her existence.
"What do you think I pay you for? So that you can hand over the Company's cash to the first gutter-draggled reprobate who asks for it? I expect you to defend our interests!"
Cowed beneath their employer's tirade, the clerks shuffle, armed with nothing more potent than their quills. "But..." one ventures.
"Silence!" Klaasz rounds on the miserable Igenlode, who cringes. "And as for you! I had hoped for some sense of responsibility, of trust. But no. My senior clerk, none less, goes running off out of idle curiosity, and chooses to betray the entire establishment rather than sacrifice one inch of that so-precious inkstained skin. You're a disgrace to your post, do you hear me? A flea-witted, lily-livered poltroon, if not outright hand-in-glove with this blowsy, bilge-bred blight upon her sex --"
"That'll be 'Captain' to you," Dutch interjects, as his eyes fall upon her for a moment.
"What?" Willem Klaasz, evidently unaccustomed to having his rages interrupted, looks completely at a loss. A couple of hastily-stifled grins spread among the serving-men, and their master's face empurples. He grabs the end of the cord from the closest, and yanks hard, pulling on the knots joining the pirate's wrists and ankles so that she almost crashes to the ground.
"That'll be Captain 'blight-upon-her-sex' to you," Dutch says again, with an air of studied insolence that contrasts all the more with the big man's loss of control. In deference to a glare from their master, Klaasz' men file out, leaving him face to face with his pinioned captive and breathing hard.
"Don't you take that tone with me -- wench!" He plucks pistols and cutlass from her belt and lets them clatter to the floor, then reaches out one hand in a flash, quick as blinking, to rip the gold loops from her ears and the heavy bags of coin from around her neck, before leaning so close she can feel his breath.
And then collapsing, like a pole-axed steer, to the floor.
Behind him, looking almost as taken aback at the outcome of events as Dutch herself, the little clerk Igenlode is revealed, with the dead weight of a bag of guilders still swinging from one hand. Cuffs askew and wig awry, her inadvertent saviour scrabbles on the floor for the pirate's dropped dagger and begins to saw through the cords as if sleep-walking.
Dutch snatches the blade as soon as she has a hand free, and slashes the tangled bindings with ruthless speed as if hacking loose a mast that has gone by the board. This stunned silence is too good to last.
Sure enough, the chubby clerk who first questioned her presence sets up a cry of alarm, rapidly joined by a confused hubbub from all the rest. It looks for a moment as if they might even gain the courage to surge forward and overwhelm her. Grabbing up the leathern satchels, Dutch casts a brief look at the door, dismisses it with the benefit of long experience, and launches herself at a run across the counting-house to a shuttered window on the far side.
Halting for a second beside the slumped body of Klaasz, she reaches up to touch the blood trickling from her torn ears. With a whispered curse, Dutch stoops and plants her dagger up to its hilt in his broad back. Then she swings the weight of the money-bags to crash open the shutters, vaults in their wake through the narrow window, and is up and running as the first of her pursuers pile in at the door.
Even with her burden, she manages to outdistance the hue-and-cry down to the waterside, where cheerful pirates, drunk on rum and bloodshed, begin to spill up the hill towards her. The fighting has died down with the capitulation, but many of the taverns have been broken open, and a number of the town's shadier establishments have flung wide their doors to the invaders. Klaasz' men halt short, frustrated, and Dutch turns to fling final insolent defiance back in their direction.
A shabby little figure almost flings itself at her feet, hands twisting together in entreaty. With a sort of shock, the pirate captain recognises the clerk she had held hostage.
"Please, you've got to take me with you --" Igenlode's face is streaked with dust and sweat like tears. "I don't know what came over me -- they all saw what I did -- my life won't be worth a crooked florin once Piet Klaasz, van der Loecke and the rest pin the noose about my neck --"
Dutch stares down at the spectacle before her, incredulous. "Steady on, my pen-pushing friend," she says, not altogether unkindly -- she could, after all, be said to lie under a certain debt of gratitude. "Are you trying to ship aboard with us?"
"Please, I've got to get away." The words come tumbling over each other like copper coins. "You won't regret it -- I can read and write and figure, and cite Livy and Plautus --"
Dutch lets the bags of money fall and laughs out loud, hands planted on her hips and head flung back. The trickle of blood from her ears is drying on her neck. "Not much call for that on a pirate ship, love!"
"I can make shift in Malay, and Tagalog, and half a dozen trading tongues," the clerk offers, desperate. "I can count money -- settle matters of law -- make sure you're not cheated --"
"Can you climb to the fore-top? Work a gun at a round a minute? Pile aboard a helpless vessel with a marlinspike, yelling blue fury?"
"I don't know." Igenlode obviously has no comprehension of what she is talking about. "I can try..."
Dutch weighs her options. Igenlode did save her life, and some of his knowledge would certainly come in handy. But why was she even considering it? Surely the clerk would be more trouble than he was worth.
Looking at the confused and desperate clerk, who is staring at the ground, a smile briefly flashes over Dutch's face. The thought of someone like that on a ship was amusing, to say the least. Well, that alone might make this worth it. Igenlode looks up at her, hoping for an answer, and the smile is quickly hidden.
Dutch looks at the clerk sternly. "Very well."
Igenlode's eyes widen when he realizes what has just been said. "But... Yes?"
"You say you know half a dozen trading tongues, and you can't even understand English?" Dutch rolls her eyes. "Yes!"
A wave of pleasant emotions comes over Igenlode, washing away his distress. He's excited about the adventure, happy about not having to clean up the mess he made of his life over the past few hours (how much could happen in so little time!), and in a way also proud that the pirate has accepted him. "You won't regret this!"
"I won't, but you might." Dutch turns around and makes for the harbor, the clerk following her, occasionally running a bit to keep up. "This is not some sort of pleasure cruise, love. You will follow orders, and you will work hard. You only leave the ship with my permission, and only for short periods."
Suddenly, she stops and turns around abruptly. Igenlode bumps into her, blushing and apologising profusely. Dutch raises her hand, cutting off the apologies, and continues. "There are no passengers on my ship, savvy? You can't leave whenever you feel like it, or because you met some wonderful lady ashore. The only way you will be leaving is if I throw you overboard, which I will do if you get in the way too much."
The clerk gulps. "I understand."
"Good." Dutch starts walking again. "Now, wait until you see my ship, the Horizon. She's the most beautiful ship you'll ever see." She smiles, thinking about the ship. "And infamous too, all the places she's been, people she's robbed. You've probably heard of her."
"Yes, I do believe I have." Nervously, Igenlode looks away.
Dutch puts a hand on his shoulder. "If you're going to be a pirate, you must learn to be a better liar, love."
Igenlode follows the pirate captain along the quayside, staring at all the activity as half a dozen pirate ships make fast to the jetties, their crews so eager to get ashore that they leave sails sagging raggedly around the yards and heaps of mooring-cable strewn drunkenly across the deck. Those who came ashore in the boats have been looting for some time, and the little clerk begins to understand the origin of the pirates' colourful and ill-matched costumes. Now that they are seen up close, Dutch appears to be one of the more restrained. Others are bursting out of houses with handfuls of whatever takes their fancy, some bedecked in ladies' silk nightgowns, some with shawls knotted around hairy necks, some squeezed into costly ripped coats made for smaller men, some draped in curtains or lacy hangings. There are squeals and the occasional scream as women are seized, some more willingly than others, and borne off to join in the riot.
Dutch navigates through all this in complete nonchalance, like a native woman bearing her goods through the hubbub of squawking chickens at a market, never missing a step or even glancing down. As far as she is concerned, scenes like this are evidently quite normal.
"There she is!" the captain says suddenly, gesturing in the direction of a spidery collection of masts and ropes jutting out over the Customs-master's hut at the end of the dock. She puts two fingers in her mouth and whistles shrilly, and a distant figure arises from a sort of bird's-nest at the top of the tallest mast and waves its arms, shouting something down towards the deck below, where people start running about. "There she is. The Horizon, dreaded all across the Seven Seas. Took her from the Navy a while back. Isn't she a beauty?"
For something that's going to carry her crew across the Seven Seas, the Horizon looks awfully small -- barely half the size of the lumbering vessels that bring the supplies from the Dutch India Company. Igenlode swallows and follows the captain as she trots out along the jetty, which moves unnervingly under their feet. The deck of the ship is a good six feet away from the edge of the damp planks of the dock, and there is a great bulge of striped hull in the gap below, where the vessel is nuzzled up to her mooring. Dutch bounds lightly across the gap without a second glance, shouting a long list of nautical gibberish to the five or six crewmen who have obviously stayed aboard under protest. As the little clerk hesitates on the brink, three of the pirates swarm ashore and run off down the swaying jetty to join in the general looting. Igenlode, knocked off-balance, stumbles forward over the edge...
"That's the ticket," Dutch says cheerfully, extending a long arm to save her newest recruit from landing face-first on the deck of her ship. "Now, if you're serious about counting treasure, I've got a list of crew shares for you to make out -- me and the rest have got some business to take care of back in the town, savvy?"
There is a dark door between the two ladders leading up to the wheel at the back of the ship. Dutch thrusts it open with a booted foot and disappears inside, tugging the clerk in her wake. Beyond is a narrow passage-way with another ladder leading downwards and closed doors leading off it on either side, and another one at the end. The captain stoops, and ducks through this door into a spacious cabin.
She sweeps a pile of charts aside from a cracked table, with scars showing in the roughened wood where daggers have been used to pin things down. "There." She lugs a massive ledger out from beneath the table, covered in dust, where it has apparently been used to prop up one wobbly leg. "Those are the ship's books -- haven't been touched since our last captain's-clerk took a charge of powder in the face from a Spanish garda-costa off Acapulco. Poor Cummings. The best thing left to do for him was to amputate -- at the neck."
She laughs at Igenlode's expression. "Now here's a reckoning of everything we've taken on the voyage, and here's a rough list of the crew, as near as I can make it out -- there'll be a matter of maybe a dozen to add or strike off, by the time this work's done. Now I want you to make out a fair division of all the booty according to these names -- see where they've made their mark? And you can put yourself down for a share after our next action..."
She has been edging towards the door. At these words she steps outside. A moment later, there comes the sound of the key in the lock. Running to the salt-stained rear windows, Igenlode can vaguely see the shapes of the captain and her remaining men leaping up onto the dock, confirmed by a slight lurch of the deck-planking as the ship curtseys beneath the parting impulse of their weight.
The little clerk is left alone on a pirate ship behind a locked door, with a full-scale looting frenzy going on ashore a few hundred yards away. Something suggests that, under the circumstances, this is quite possibly the most preferable place to be.
Not much later, Igenlode has finished the task the captain gave him. It may be too much for the pirates to make sense of (or too much trouble for them to bother trying to make sense of), but the clerk does this sort of thing every day.
He gets up and walks to the windows. Noises of the plundering ashore still reach the ship, but no sounds close-by. When will the pirates come back? And what is he supposed to do in the meantime?
Igenlode's eyes wander from the shapeless twilight outside back to the cabin. In a corner stands a comfortable looking padded chair. It looks surprisingly clean and undamaged compared to the rest of the cabin, except for some deep scratches where the chair is widest. The pirates must have plundered it and dragged it here for their captain.
With a soft sigh, the clerk sits down. More has happened to him over the past day than in the entire rest of his life. The events finally catch up with Igenlode, and he enters a deep, dreamless sleep.
***
Loud noises and bangs on the door wake Igenlode with a shock. Outside the cabin, men curse and shout at him to open the door. The frightened clerk pulls his legs up on the chair and wishes he could fully retreat himself into it. Were they Klaasz' men? They seem too verbal for that. Could they be other pirates, trying to take over the ship?
"Men, what did I tell you?"
Recognizing Dutch's voice, Igenlode's body relaxes, and he exhales, somewhat relieved.
"I said no scaring the poor clerk. Now go. Johnson, you stay."
Coarse laughter fills the hall, fading slowly as the men leave.
There is scratching at the door, and cursing from Dutch. "Bloody key! First thing tomorrow, you will get me a better key!" The man called Johnson accedes.
Finally, Dutch gets the key in the lock, opens the door and falls in, grabbing the desk just in time to prevent herself from falling. Noticing the clerk is staring at her, she quickly recovers, stands up straight (though still unstable) and commands: "Get out of my chair."
Igenlode hastily jumps out. "I'm sorry. I didn't know..."
But Dutch ignores him, as well as the fancy chair, and sits down on the wooden chair at the desk instead. Johnson opens a chest, searches in the contents, and after taking out some small items, which Igenlode cannot make out in the dim light, uses the chest as a seat.
In short drags Dutch moves the chair with herself on it close to Johnson.
Now that both pirates are closer to Igenlode, he can smell the alcohol on their breath. Trying to distract himself from the fact he has no idea what to expect, he asks: "You were... celebrating?"
"Only a little," replies Dutch, removing her bandana and tying her matted, sun-bleached hair back with the long strand of cloth. "First we were plundering, then we were celebrating. But I was mainly preparing, not celebrating. Honestly."
"Preparing? For what?"
"For this." Reaching into her pocket, Dutch reveals two gold earrings.
Igenlode doesn't remember if she took her own earrings back out of Klaasz' clutches. Maybe she took these from the body of an unfortunate sailor or pirate ashore. "But... he tore your ears."
"Exactly." With a painful grimace, Dutch removes as much of the crusted blood from her ears as she can, then inserts one of the earrings between the separate halves of an earlobe.
Johnson in the meantime has lit and turned up a lamp. The flickering light is reflected in the fresh blood on Dutch's ear.
Igenlode is finally able to make out what Johnson removed from the chest: a needle and thread.
When Johnson reaches for her ear, Dutch grabs his hand firmly. Uncharacteristically nervous, she says: "One in the front, one in the back, one on the bottom. That's enough."
Igenlode quickly turns around as Johnson follows the instructions.
Soon the stitching is finished. Dutch immediately stands up to get a bottle of some dark, alcoholic substance from a nearby cabinet. After a long swig, she tells Johnson to leave, emphasizing her order by swinging the bottle in the direction of the door. She takes a deep breath, then another swig, before putting the bottle on the desk, missing it the first time, despite the considerable size of the target.
Noticing the key on the table, Dutch is suddenly reminded of the fact that the door needs to be locked for some reason. She proceeds to do so, taking a while to succeed, and puts the key in her pocket before climbing into a hammock (oddly enough without any trouble) and falling asleep instantly.
During all this, Igenlode has kept his distance, not sure how to behave around a pirate or a drunk, let alone a female combination of the two. Finding no other place to sleep, and not daring to sit in the padded chair again, he takes a blanket from the still open cabinet and, draping it around himself, sits down in a corner of the cabin.
~meanwhile, beyond the horizon...~
HMS BELLINGHAM, seventy-four
Excerpt from ship's log
Igenlode is awoken by a kick against his legs. Still tired from a bad night's sleep in such an uncomfortable position, he forces his eyes to go up from the boots to the face of the person who kicked him, whom he identifies as Dutch. She's carrying a plate of food, which she hands to the clerk as soon as he seems lucid enough.
"Here."
"Thank you."
Working himself up into a better position, Igenlode suddenly realizes how long it's been since he has last eaten. He eagerly starts cleaning the plate. After the worst hunger is satisfied, he stretches his painful neck and looks at Dutch, who has sat down at the desk with a plate of her own. Nothing in her demeanor reveals the drunken stupor she was in last night. Igenlode would have wondered if he had dreamt it, if it weren't for the stitches in her ear, odd little knots under the shiny gold earrings.
Dutch looks back at the clerk, and, her mouth half full, says: "That's what you get. Why on earth did you do something like that?"
"Like what?" With a guilty conscience from staring at her, Igenlode hopes he hasn't done anything wrong or insulting.
Dutch nudges her head towards the corner of the cabin where he is sitting and swallows her last bite. "Why did you sleep on the floor? I'm sorry I didn't sling a hammock for you yet, but you could have at least taken the chair."
"Yes..." As if he would have risked that. "Quite right."
For a while it is silent, Igenlode eating and Dutch taking out the ledger and inspecting his work.
As his plate empties, showing the decorations on the fine china, Igenlode suddenly bursts into laughter.
Dutch raises an eyebrow. "What's so funny?"
"This plate! It's mine."
"Yours?"
"You must have stolen it from my house."
Dutch joins in the laughter. "Everything's an equal share, love."
The merriment, that strangely equalizes pirate and clerk, is disrupted by a knock at the door. A sailor enters. "Captain, permission for twenty men to go ashore?"
"Yes, mate. As we discussed. And make sure the others get the Horizon ready."
With an "Aye aye, Sir!" the sailor leaves.
Igenlode finishes his breakfast. "More celebrating?"
Dutch glares at the clerk, wondering if his remark was meant to make fun of her behavior the previous evening. The understanding they had only minutes before is immediately disrupted.
Igenlode freezes at seeing the anger in Dutch's eyes, not knowing how she might have taken his innocent remark.
Noticing Igenlode's fear, Dutch realizes he didn't mean anything by what he said. Still, it was foolish to put herself on an equal level, where she could be hurt, and she decides to keep her distance. "No. No celebrating. They are getting supplies. Food, drink, wood... Whatever we need."
"Are we leaving soon?"
"I don't know. We're sailing along with this fleet some more, and I'm not the only one making the decisions. It could be a couple of days, but it never hurts to be prepared." Dutch gets up from her chair. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to make sure my ship receives proper care."
Just as she closes the door, Igenlode interjects: "Captain?"
Dutch sticks her head back in the cabin. "Yes?"
"What happened to the navy ships that defended the city?" Igenlode had a nephew aboard the Hecate, and was concerned about his well-being. He liked the lad, and it was in part this nephew's stories of his first time at sea that had sparked Igenlode's curiosity about the world, and caused his dissatisfaction with his own, dull life.
"Most of them fled. A fine bunch of men, aren't they? Pride of the king's navy." Dutch closes the door again and shouts from the other side: "I tell you, the day the navy is a match for our fleet is the day I will resign as Captain."
The key turns in the lock.
Igenlode stares at the blank door, frowning a little unhappily. Was it all imagination, that note of over-emphasis in the pirate captain's voice? Which of the two of them was she really trying to convince? Did Dutch actually know what she was up against?
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks," the clerk whispers softly, resorting, as so often in moments of distress, to a tag from the works of some dead author. Not that the pirate would have recognised it even if she'd heard, of course. That obscure play that had been so popular back at the turn of the century hadn't been performed for years.
The pirate ships were small and doubtless speedy, and crammed with enough cut-throats to overwhelm any merchantman they could board. But the little official's over-vivid imagination could visualise only too clearly the horror that would be wreaked upon those crowded decks, with their little pop-guns, if a pirate vessel were caught in the broadside of a ship of the line -- a big seventy-four-gun warship like a fortress, with 24-pounder cannon balls that could smash straight through the Horizon and never stop for life and limb until they passed out the other side. And there wasn't just one ship of the line lurking out there -- somewhere, by nephew Tom's stories, there were six, with the Bellingham the largest of them all...
Igenlode didn't believe for a moment that the Hecate had simply fled. She was a frigate, a fast scout-ship, her job to keep an eye on events for the main fleet, back up the smallest ships of the squadron with a show of power and summon reinforcements where necessary. And right now, depending on the wind, the tide and all those naval mysteries which Tom had tried to explain but which remained a baffling blank, Captain Hunter and young Tom and all the rest would be ploughing back toward Table Mountain across the long ocean waves at the head of a column of British seventy-fours, ready to bring down fire and retribution on the heads of the pirates who had dared to challenge their authority. They might wait for nightfall. They might appear at any time.
The clerk's hands were twisting together over and over each other at the prospect. The extinction of one's own life could be faced with a certain equanimity -- well no, if truth be told it was more likely to be faced, when it came to it, with gibbering terror, but the principle of the thing remained. You could run your own head into danger, and that was one thing. But to potentially be responsible for hundreds and hundreds of unnecessary deaths, for a massive slaughter, perhaps for the death of Dutch herself -- an unexpected pang -- that was another.
In a straight exchange of broadsides, the pirates, however many of them there were, simply didn't stand a chance. The only way they could possibly survive was by some trick of foul play... and that, to a soul that was still at heart basically law-abiding, was almost worse. It wasn't just Tom (though of course it was). It was all those other sailors just doing their duty, trying to keep the peace and protect innocent people from having their houses broken open and their throats cut and every little thing of value dragged away by a parcel of romantic, yes, adventurous, yes, swashbuckling and daring, yes, but undoubtedly callous and bloodthirsty rogues.
Dutch and the rest couldn't be allowed to go out and fight the Navy. There had to be some way to stop them -- to fool them into sailing off before the Hecate and the rest could get here, to trick them away into safety... But the thought of deliberately lying to Dutch and being found out was even worse. What did she do to people like that? Whatever wouldn't she do to traitors... a female who sat there calmly having her own ears stitched up with needle and thread? Igenlode, already desperately worried, was beginning to feel actually sick.
* * * *
It took a while for the reason for this to sink in. There had been a good deal of shouting up above, as things were hurriedly loaded on board ship. There had been heavy thumps on the deck which the clerk belatedly realised must have been the dripping mooring cables. There had been musket-shots and yells from ashore as the last few stragglers were rounded up to their ships from their various drunken stupors.
Now the planking of the cabin was beginning to lurch gently from side to side, in a rolling, nauseous motion. Through the windows, curves of greyish canvas could be seen blossoming on the masts of the other ships in the bay. The Horizon and the rest were putting to sea.
As the heavier sounds from the loading and the preparation for departure die down, Igenlode can hear Dutch's voice shouting commands. He can't make out what she is saying. That doesn't matter much since he wouldn't have understood it anyway, but in this situation, it makes him even more nervous. He sits down in a chair and firmly grasps the arms, trying to steady the outer world as well as the inner. With closed eyes, he takes deep breaths.
This meditation of sorts is interrupted when Igenlode hears footsteps running down the stairs. The doorknob is turned, followed by a curse upon realizing the door is locked. It is Dutch. Shortly after, she storms in, the key in her hand, and starts digging around in the chest and cabinets, pulling out various small weapons and tucking them under her belt.
"What..." Igenlode gulps. "What is happening?"
Dutch ignores him and keeps searching.
"Why are we leaving?" tries Igenlode again.
"The navy." A small shake of the head. Dutch now regrets her condescending remark about navy ships. Exaggeration is a great tool for making an impression, but being proved wrong is the one thing she can't stand. "They're coming."
This solves his dilemma, but Igenlode isn't much happier. The prospect of being blown to pieces isn't a good one.
Dutch grabs a last dagger before shutting the cabinet. Noticing Igenlode's distress, she forces a smile. "Don't worry, love. We'll be gone before they even come close."
The clerk raises an eyebrow. "Hence the weapons?"
Looking down at her belt, as if realizing for the first time that she's carrying weapons, Dutch sighs. "Strictly a precaution." She rushes back on deck.
Igenlode wonders why she had left weapons in a room with him, her prisoner. Then again, what could he have done with them? A lone clerk against a bunch of murderous pirates. He suddenly realizes that locking him up is probably for his own protection as much as for keeping him there. Protection against Dutch's crew, who are possibly less friendly than herself. Protection against the hard life he would be forced to lead on deck.
Then he realizes something else. Dutch didn't lock the door.
***
HMS BELLINGHAM, seventy-four
Excerpt from ship's log
Igenlode, still feeling decidedly queasy, wonders what to do for a moment. Instinct suggests that staying put would be a much better idea. A nagging sense of adventure maintains that Dutch is unlikely to repeat her slip in the near future, and that it would be verging on the criminal to waste such an opportunity... Adventure, for the moment, wins out. The clerk tiptoes closer to the door, listens for a moment -- there seems to be no-one below-decks -- and pushes it gently open.
The scene beyond is much the same as it was the previous afternoon: the narrow panelled corridor, the doors leading off to left and to right, the dark stairway downwards and the double-doors ahead leading out onto the main deck. Overhead, there is a sudden loud creak and a rush of feet from one side of the poop to the other, and the ship heels over quite noticeably. Igenlode freezes, convinced that the Horizon is about to capsize and almost afraid that opening the cabin door might have had something to do with it. But the ship settles over onto her new tack with a volley of orders as the hands heave on the braces up above, chanting what the clerk realises must be a genuine sea-shanty as they haul. Judging by the snippets of lyric that float down, someone has decided to improvise a rather scurrilous verse about their captain. Igenlode blushes scarlet and studiously avoids listening any further.
Swallowing, the clerk ventures down the corridor. There are only a handful of doors to other cabins, and today most of them are open. None of the cabins revealed are nearly as big as Dutch's, and Igenlode remembers that this was once a Navy ship, even if a small one. Clearly the hierarchy among the ranks afloat is as strict, if not stricter, as the divisions between the different grades at the counting-house.
Leaning over the rail at the head of the ladder leading down below reveals a wave of dank air and a vision of a darkened deck, only relieved by the flickering light around the edges of the closed gun-ports as the ship rolls. Voices drift up, and the clerk shrinks back. Evidently some of the crew are down there -- perhaps preparing the guns. The thought is less than comforting on an unsettled stomach.
The ladder carries on down through a square hole in the gun-deck, and it is from here that the worst of the smell is rising. The hold below is not an inviting prospect. Igenlode wonders if that morning's food can possibly have come from casks stored down there, and very nearly loses said breakfast altogether.
Suddenly, the doors leading out onto the deck are thrust apart. With no time to make it back into the captain's cabin, the 'escaped prisoner' freezes in panic, flattened into the shadows behind the door. From this dubious concealment, it is possible to hear every word.
Igenlode can distinguish two separate voices, though by the sound of the footsteps, there might be three men as well. They halt in the door opening, which they apparently think the least likely place to be overheard, the noises outside drowning low voices from within, and too far from the men working the guns below to be heard by them.
"I can't believe we are fleeing." The man is clearly annoyed.
"All the ships are fleeing. And not without reason: the whole navy's coming for us!"
"So they say. You know who they heard that from?"
"Who?"
"Joe Smith."
"Smith?! He says he's seen huge sea serpents and monsters and what not! He claims to have kissed a mermaid once! Give him a drop of drink, and he's kissed ten!"
"Exactly. But the captain believes him."
"Now, hold on, it's not just the captain. The fleet is leaving, and we decided to sail with the fleet. Strength in numbers and all that."
"Well, if this is the valor of the fleet in action, our strength will be a lot greater if we sail alone. I say we vote to leave the fleet."
"We can't vote now! The captain has absolute power when we're being chased, you know that."
"But this is all about whether we're being chased in the first place! I seriously doubt it. But the captain will say we are, and command us to flee until she's proven wrong. Then it'll be too late. We could have easily spend a week in Cape Town, celebrating our victory! But now we're not going to, only because the bloody wench decides to listen to that drunken idiot Smith."
The other man, while not too happy, seems to accept the situation. "What can you do?"
"Oh, I know exactly what to do."
With that, the men go below.
Igenlode continues to stand frozen behind the door, trying to breath as quietly as possible, as if the men might still hear him, wherever they are. Oh no... Not this too. Adventure was one thing, but he seemed to be falling from one misfortune into another. Was there really a mutiny on the way? Or was it just his over-active imagination at work again? Maybe the sailors were simply referring to some nautical business he does not understand. But that one man was awfully upset...
Trying to convince himself that nothing is wrong, Igenlode carefully leaves his hiding place. He considers going back to Dutch's cabin, but is too afraid that he'll be seen by the annoyed men, and that they would somehow know he overheard them. He therefore ventures onto the deck, a few cautious steps, shielding his eyes from the bright sun. The crew is hard at work on deck and in the rigging. The men are everywhere, and all moving around constantly. Igenlode tries to see what it is that's being done, the effects of every man's actions, while adjusting to the bright rays of the sun.
Suddenly a silhouette appears before him. The figure grabs him by his coat and pushes him back into the shadows, against the door-post. Dutch is furious. "What do you think you're doing here? Are you insane? I can not have you in the way now! Not when the bloody navy is coming for us!"
"But... I... You left the door..."
Dutch ignores the clerk's plea and shoves him back inside, toward her cabin, where she pushes him into the chair. "Now stay!" She points her finger at him to emphasize her words. "If I see you on deck again, I will throw you overboard myself!"
"No, listen! I heard men talking."
From Igenlode's expression and the content of his words, Dutch understands this is important. Her anger cools down a little. "What men? What did they say?"
But Igenlode doesn't reply, his face taking on an even paler shade as he stares at the doorway behind her.
Not much can be seen of the pirate silhouetted against the sunlit deck, but the foot-long saw-edged knife in his hand is distressingly obvious.
"Not a word, Captain." He holds up an admonitory hand as Dutch, hand on her own knife, starts to swing round. "We wouldn't want trouble, would we?"
He steps inside, letting the double doors fall closed, as Dutch, ignoring this warning, steps out of her cabin, grabs a slender blade from her other sleeve, flicks the hilt back in her hand, and throws it. The blade misses its target -- who has ducked -- by a whisker, flying down the length of the passageway to impale itself, vibrating, in the wood of the door to a depth of a good inch.
Almost at once three figures erupt from the companionway leading down to the gun-deck, almost at Dutch's feet, and try to grab hold of her. Dutch, furious, kicks out and manages to fend them off, drawing breath to shout for help. But the smallest of the three, a little brown wizened man with eyes as black as the remaining strands in his long grizzled hair, has darted past into her cabin and seized upon the shrinking Igenlode. There is a slim plaited cord in his hand, and he loops it expertly round the clerk's pallid neck, yanks it tight, and makes a twisting motion. Igenlode claws wildly at the garotte, eyes beginning to bulge to the accompaniment of little choking noises.
Dutch curses violently but softly, and stops struggling against her assailants. "May you be hanged from the highest gallows-tree in the Caribbees, Jeremiah Binns, and dangle me there into the bargain if ever I trust you as bo's'n again..."
"Soft," the pirate Binns says in a deep voice that would not have disgraced an undertaker, shaking his head mournfully. He comes down the short passageway towards her, making a signal to his Indian confederate to allow the hostage a little breath and examining the unprepossessing features thus revealed. He shakes his head again, more in sorrow than in anger. "What good's a creature like that to any man aboard? Just like I told you, lads... captain's gone soft..."
Dutch glares at her mutinous bo's'n. "Let the clerk go and we'll fight each other, just you and me. Then you'll see how soft I've gone."
Binns turns toward her, reaches out his hand and gently strokes Dutch's hair, positioning himself very close. "That might be a good idea."
For a second, Dutch's eyes widen, shocked at Binns' innuendo. Then pure anger takes over. She rams her head into his, and, while he stumbles back, kicks him as hard as she can in the groin. Watching him bend over in pain, she says quietly, her voice dripping with disdain: "Don't you dare talk to me like that."
The other three mutineers, not sure what to do, look at their leader as he recovers. He slowly stands again, his face showing no emotion, and walks up to Dutch, who defies his stare. Appearing as if out of nowhere, his huge fist suddenly hits her in the temple, knocking her unconscious.
"Tie them up and lock the door. Jones, you keep watch outside the cabin. We'll go to convince the crew what is best for the ship."
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