Читать книгу Greenbeard - Richard James Bentley - Страница 10

CHAPTER THE FOURTH,

or the Captain Has A Banyan Day.

Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo rode a Percheron mare down the winding path to Porte de Recailles. The plough-horse was quite old and he had bought it very cheaply, but it was big enough and still powerful enough to carry the weight of his huge frame with ease. A smaller horse would have been overloaded, and Blue Peter abhorred cruelty to animals. It was the early morning and the air was still cool and crisp, which was pleasing to both man and horse. The late-summer day would soon become bakingly hot as the sun rose high over the Caribbean island.

Nearly a year had passed since the beard of Captain Greybagges had been turned green by the horrors he had encountered in Nombre Dios Bay, and these months had been very good to the pirates of the frigate Ark de Triomphe. The disaster in Nombre Dios Bay – the sad failure to take the Spanish plate fleet, the mysterious greening of the Captain’s beard – had seemed like a terrible portent, but the pirates had been extraordinarily lucky in the aftermath. Captain Greybagges’s bright green beard had not made him an object of mockery, but had instead given him a fell and perilous aura of the supernatural. Ships that could easily have out-run or out-fought the Ark de Triomphe had hove-to at the first sight of Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges standing grim-faced on the quarterdeck, his sombre all-black clothes emphasizing the brilliant grass-green of his long beard. The mystery of how his beard had become green was now a legend across the Spanish Main, and he was feared in a way that no ordinary captain of buccaneers could emulate. The fortunes of the Ark de Triomphe had prospered accordingly.

The horse whickered and tossed its head, and Blue Peter patted its neck affectionately.

Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo had invested a small part of his treasure in a cottage high in the hills above Porte de Recailles. He spent time there when the frigate was in port, adding to his growing collection of books, improving his grasp of Greek and Latin. He even wrote poetry occasionally, seated at an inlaid oak escritoire by a window with a view down onto the smoking chimneys and the squalor of Porte de Recailles, over the forest of masts in the harbour and out over the clean blue of the sea. In a small way this satisfied his desire to be a gentleman; a true gentleman would surely have such a refuge in which to write and to study, away from the cares of the world. A true gentleman, thought Blue Peter, might also have a groom, so he wouldn’t have to chase his own carthorse up and down the field himself, for the old mare had been frisky that morning. He patted its neck again.

The larger part of Blue Peter’s treasure remained in the keeping of Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, as did the bulk of the treasure of the rest of the Ark de Triomphe’s crew. This was unusual, to say the least. Buccaneers were not by nature or experience trusting creatures, and would commonly demand that all plunder and loot be divvied up as soon as circumstances allowed. Captains of pirates who kept all the boodle, telling the crew with a wink “I’ll keep this safe and sound fer yez, shipmates, and there’s my affy-davy on that, wi’ a curse!” were viewed with darkest suspicion, for amongst the brotherhood of pirates the Seven Deadly Sins were not unknown, and Greed was almost a celebrity.

But when Captain Greybagges had given each man only a portion of his share of the loot nobody had complained. The pay-outs had been substantial, it was true, but the Captain had not pretended that they were complete. Nor had he offered an explanation.

Blue Peter mused upon this as the old padnag plodded on down to Porte de Recailles in the cool morning air. There was no doubt that Captain Greybagges had been changed by his strange and unearthly experiences in Nombre Dios Bay, and not just in the colour of his long beard. The Captain had possessed a whimsical sense of humour and an almost boyish sense of mischief, but now he was grim and distant. In the times before the Captain’s beard had been turned green he would not have been able to hold back treasure from an open division of the spoils under the strict rules of the Free Brotherhood of the Coasts. If he had tried then it was certain that a voice from the back of the assembled crew would have made a smart-alecky comment, Captain Greybagges would have made a witty rejoinder and so the reasons for keeping back the loot would have been teased out of him with good humour. But now the crew - and a crew of lusty pirates, too – accepted it without question or comment. It was very odd. The crew of the Ark de Triomphe were more disciplined, more efficient, under the cold grey eyes of this grim new Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, but Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo found this unsettling. In truth, he feared for his friend.

Captain Greybagges was reading some very unusual books, too. The Captain was a literate man, and had always enjoyed reading a good rollicking yarn – Tobias Smollet was a favourite, or that hussy Aphra Behn (a woman writing books, what a disgrace!) – but lately the Captain had been nose-deep in Professor Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Robert Hook’s Micrographica and other such rum stuff. He had even been reading the works of the heretical monk Giordano Bruno, who had claimed in his De l’Infinito, Universo e Mondi that the stars in the night sky were suns like the sun of daytime, but very far away, and who had been burned at the stake for cherishing such offensive and blasphemous thoughts. Blue Peter recalled that the deranged monk had even suggested that those faraway suns could have planets like the Earth itself and that creatures might live on them, even races of intelligent beings. Blue Peter had seen many wonders since leaving Africa as a child, and learned many things in his extensive reading, but planets of strange beings orbiting distant stars? That was such a disturbing idea that he wasn’t really surprised that the Inquisition had torched the monk. Why was the Captain delving into such arcane stuff?

Blue Peter’s conscience prodded him; it was not just Captain Greybagges’s loyal and thievish crew, you did not yourself object when he didn’t share out the loot, it said. It is true, thought Blue Peter, but I felt that if I had, then I couldn’t be sure if he’d burst out crying, shoot me, or curse me with the evil eye.

The old plough-horse plodded on down the path to Porte de Recailles, with a thoughtful Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo riding bareback upon it.

Two of the smart-alecky voices that might be heard from the back of any assembly of the crew of the Ark de Triomphe were conversing companionably, sitting on the cross-trees of the frigate’s mainmast, high above the deck. Jemmy Ducks, keeper of the ship’s ducks, chickens, pigs and goat, and Jack Nastyface, cook’s assistant, both holding honorary job-titles in lieu of their real names, were skiving-off, and their idle discussion had been following the same path as Blue Peter’s thoughts; what was the Captain doing with the loot?

“Ay-yoop! ‘Tis the Blue Boy!” said Jemmy Ducks, “on his trusty charger.”

“Where away, cuz? Where is the dark knight on his Arabian steed?” said Jack Nastyface, whose eyesight was poor.

“End o’ quay. Just come round corner o’ timberyard,” said Jemmy Ducks, slithering from his perch onto the ratlines. The pair climbed down, warning the other foremast jacks of the Master Gunner’s approach and bickering, Jemmy Ducks averring that Jack Nastyface’s myopia was the result of onanistic practices, Jack Nastyface replying that he did indeed practice onanism but only once a day and only to spill his seed into Jemmy Duck’s morning porridge.

Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, sitting at his desk in the Great Cabin in the midst of a chaos of account-books and ledgers, heard the two still bickering as they went down the companionway, and heard his servant Mumblin’ Jake mumble at them to shut up and not disturb the cap’n, look’ee. Blue Peter will be here presently, he thought, knowing that the livestock-keeper and the cook’s assistant would not otherwise have ended their mid-morning smoke and yarn. He called to Mumblin’ Jake to make fresh coffee.

Blue Peter knocked and entered the Great Cabin, followed by Mumblin’ Jake with a tray bearing a steaming tin coffee-pot, mugs and a plate of biscuits. Jake set out the mugs and poured the coffee, placed the plate on the edge of the desk, and mumbled off to his lair in the Captain’s pantry. Blue Peter sat down opposite Captain Greybagges, who smiled a grim smile at him in welcome, his grey eyes far-away.

“Let me finish with these damn’ books, curse ‘em. I’ll be a whore’s half-hour, no more. Here, read this while I figure.” The Captain handed him a printed broadsheet, folded in the fashion of the stock-jobbers in crowded London coffee-houses to show only the article of interest. Blue Peter unfolded it to find the broadsheet’s name; the Tortuga Times. He refolded the broadsheet, and glanced at the Captain, who was in his shirtsleeves, checking entries in the ledgers, clicking an abacus and writing, scritch-scratch, with a quill, his face impassive.

Blue Peter turned his attention back to the newspaper. The article was a poem. Blue Peter read it through with mounting amusement, having to choke back guffaws of laughter as it was so bad. He looked at the Captain, but the Captain’s eyes were on the account-books, and his pen went scritch-scratch. Blue Peter could bear no more; he snapped the folded broadsheet to flatten it, cleared his throat and, in his deep voice, with an artful theatricality, read the poem out loud...

“CAPTAIN GREYBAGGES ALIAS ‘GREEN BEARD’

by Mungo McGonagall.

Sylvestre de Greybagges came from Recailles, and sailed from that port

On board the good ship Ark de Triomphe, in search of sport, As Captain, long had he held that station, And for personal courage he had gained his crew’s approbation.

‘Twas in the spring, Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges sailed to Providence

In the continent of America, and no further hence;

And in their way captured a vessel laden with flour,

Which they put on board their own vessel in the space of an hour.

They also seized two other vessels and took some gallons of wine,

Besides plunder to a considerable value, and most of it most costly of design;

And after that they made a prize of a large French Guinea-man,

Then to act an independent part Captain Greybagges now began.

But the news spread throughout America, far and near,

And filled many of the inhabitants’ hearts with fear;

But Lord Mondegreen with his sloops of war directly steered,

And left James River on the 17th November in quest of Green Beard,

And on the evening of the 21st came in sight of the pirate;

And when His Lordship spied Green Beard he felt himself elate.

When Green Beard saw the sloops sent to apprehend him,

He didn’t lose his courage, but fiendishly did grin;

And told his men to cease from drinking and their tittle-tattle,

To see to their dags and cutlasses and prepare for a battle.

In case anything should happen to him during the engagement,

One of his men asked him, who felt rather discontent,

Whether anybody knew where he had buried his pelf,

When he impiously replied that nobody knew but the devil and himself.

In the morning Lord Mondegreen weighed and sent his boat to sound,

Which, coming near the pirate, unfortunately ran aground;

But Mondegreen lightened his vessel of the ballast and water,

Whilst from the pirates’ ship small shot loudly did clatter.

But the pirates’ small shot or slugs didn’t Mondegreen appal,

He told his men to take their swords and be ready upon his call;

And to conceal themselves every man below,

While he would remain alone at the helm and face the foe.

Then Green Beard cried, ‘They’re all knocked on the head,’

When he saw no hand upon deck he thought they were dead;

Then Green Beard boarded Mondegreen ‘s sloop without dismay,

But Mondegreen ‘s men rushed upon deck, then began the deadly fray.

Then Green Beard and Lord Mondegreen engaged sword in hand,

And His Lordship fought manfully and made a bold stand;

And Green Beard’s cutlass clanged against the sword of Mondegreen, Making the most desperate and bloody conflict that ever was seen.

At last with shots and wounds Mondegreen fell down in a swoon,

And his men thus dismayed laid down their pistols and spontoons,

Green Beard laughed grimly and marooned them all ashore,

And went back to Recailles to fritter his loot on rum and whores.

Green Beard derived his name from his long green beard,

Which terrified America more than any comet that had ever appeared;

But wicked pirates thank the Devil that in this age all be a’feared,

Of the mighty buccaneer who possesses the eldritch Green Beard!”

Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo, with magnificent fortitude, managed to read to the end of the poem, but then could no longer keep control. He laughed until his eyes ran tears and his ribs hurt, slapping the folded broadsheet on his thigh, wheezing and whooping trying to catch a breath. Captain Greybagges had sat back in his captain’s chair and was watching Blue Peter with a smile. As he watched the grimness slowly departed from his face and the smile grew wider, until he too was laughing, a great booming laugh. This continued for some minutes, as each time one would try to stop he would catch sight of the other and so fall again into helpless merriment.

“Oh, bugger!” said Captain Greybagges, wiping his eyes and shaking his head. He pulled the black silk scarf, knotted pirate-fashion, from his shaven pate and blew his nose on it, which triggered Blue Peter into a further fit of laughter. Blue Peter was a giant, and Captain Greybagges was not a small man, so their combined laughter was very loud. Up above, on the deck and in the rigging, the crew were frozen, exchanging startled glances, only continuing with their work as the gales of rumbling hilarity from below subsided to inaudible giggles.

Captain Greybagges wiped his eyes and blew his nose again on the now-sodden black scarf, and managed to curb his mirth enough to take sips of coffee. After a while Blue Peter did, too, hiccoughing and spilling some.

“Oh, God! I needed that!” said the Captain, “I have been very mumpish of late, I know.”

“I was beginning to be concerned. Unremitting solemnity is unbecoming even in a preacher of Calvin’s credo, let alone in a captain of buccaneers,” said Blue Peter, dipping a biscuit in his coffee and eating it swiftly, before it disintegrated.

“You know, when I gave you that paper I had not the notion that the wretched doggerel was so amusing. I was merely going to comment upon how the plain facts of the matter were so sadly misrepresented,” said the Captain, refilling his mug, and carefully selecting a biscuit from the plate.

“Yes, indeed. My Lord Mondegreen is a terrible buffoon, is he not? Do you think he paid that poet to write it? ... on second thoughts, no, let us please talk of other things, or I shall start again, and I feel that it would kill me.”

“You are right. We cannot sit here chortling like tom-fools, yet I am deeply loath to lose this pleasant lightness of spirit...” Captain Greybagges drummed his fingers on the desk-top for a moment, then roared for Mumblin’ Jake.

“Look’ee, Jake! Makes you me a picnic-hamper! A great fine picnic-hamper!”

“A picnic-hamper, Cap’n, sor?”

“A basket o’ wittles for a shore-goin’ party o’ two hungry fellows. Bread - the soft tack and not the ship’s biscuit, mind yez! - butter, cheese, cooked meats - if there be any left wholesome in this damned heat - boiled eggs, pickles, fruit, some bottles of beer, some sweetmeats. Tell Len to fill a water-bag from the pump on the quay. Put it all in the skiff. Smartly now, ye lazy hound!” Mumblin’ Jake scuttled out of the door.

Captain Greybagges stood up, rubbed his hands together and started slamming the ledgers and account-books shut.

“Away, dull care!” he cried. “School is over! Out for the summer!” Blue Peter stared at him as he packed away the books, abacus, quills and inkpots, humming under his breath.

“He is a terrible ass, though, is Lord Mondegreen,” said the Captain, musingly. “D’you remember him singing in that church in New Amsterdam? That Christmastide? Getting all the words of the hymns wrong? What a jackanapes!”

“Good King wants his applesauce, at the feast this eve-ning!” sang Blue Peter in a rumbling bass, grinning hugely, showing his filed teeth.

“Kept by thy tender care, Gladys the cross-eyed bear!” sang the Captain, in a light tenor. The two buccaneers struggled against a new attack of mirth.

The Captain rummaged around in a chest and found a ragged straw hat, which he clapped on his head. Another rummage in a cupboard produced a brown canvas bag. On a whim, he pushed back the desk and rolled up the rug and threw it over his shoulder.

“A banyan day for the captain!” he roared. “Come, let us picnic, shipmate!”

Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges rowed the skiff across Rum Bay with long easy strokes of the oars. He ran the skiff onto the beach below Sruudta Point. The two freebooters hauled it ashore by its gunwales, then tied the painter to a long iron spike tapped into the sand with the butt of an oar. The day was calm and sunny and the waves mere ripples, but good seamanship is good seamanship and cannot be gainsaid, even by the most temerarious of buccaneers.

“Har! Place you your trust in Allah, but tie your camel to a tree, as the Moors are wont to say,” said the Captain. “Look! There is a capital spot!” He pointed to a knoll where the ground started to rise up before the tor on the point. They carried the things from the skiff. There were two stunted trees on the knoll, Captain Greybagges unrolled the carpet on the coarse salt-grass and hung the canvas waterbag from a branch in the shade. A sailcloth fire-bucket, half-full of seawater, was hung from another branch as a beer-cooler, the basket was hung from yet another branch to preserve the food from ants.

“Not a sylvan glade, exactly, or even an Arcadian grove, but a small oasis or caravanserai at any rate, with a Turkish rug, too!” laughed Captain Greybagges. “Now, how about a game of cricket? Get an appetite for lunch, eh?”

“Cricket...” Blue Peter said softly, “I have long wished to play cricket. Surely it requires two teams of eleven men, though?”

“It does, but we shall play a practice game with made-up rules, as I did so often as a boy.”

On a flat stretch of beach the Captain put down the brown canvas bag and undid its straps.

“Here, Peter, this is the club, or bat,” he handed it to Blue Peter, “and here is a ball, and here are the stumps and bails. How much do you know of the game?”

“I have only read of it, so treat me as an ignoramus.”

“Firstly, the pitch is twenty-two yards long between the wickets.”

Captain Greybagges pushed three stumps into the sand and placed the two bails on top. He then counted twenty-two paces and put up the second wicket.

“The crease is a short step afore the wicket,” he said, using a bare toe to scratch a line in the sand by each wicket, “and the batsman stands thus.” He took the bat from Blue Peter and demonstrated. “The bat must stay touching the crease until the bowler starts his run. Opinions vary about this from cricket-club to cricket-club, but it is a good strategy anyway to cover the wicket, as the bowler is trying to knock it down.” He gave the bat back to Blue Peter, who tried the batsman’s stance, having to bend and crouch to touch the bat to the crease. “I will bowl the ball, but I will bowl it slowly. Don’t hit it hard, not at first, get the feel of the bat and just prevent the ball from hitting the stumps, for if a bail falls off then you are out.”

Captain Greybagges bowled slow balls to Blue Peter, then Blue Peter tried bowling slow balls to the the Captain. Occasionally the Captain would stop and explain a rule, or an aspect of the game-play. The thwack of the hard leather ball on the wooden bat was loud in the quiet of the beach, and echo’d faintly from the cliffs on the other side of Rum Bay.

“What-ho! I’m hungry,” said the Captain, “Time to pull the stumps! How do you like it then, Peter? The game of cricket?”

“I am intrigued. I think I could become enamoured of it. The over-arm bowling is more tricky than it looks, especially when there are two pistols and a cutlass in one’s belt. I wish to practice it more.”

“One thing, Peter. When the game is finished the team captains must shake hands.” He offered his hand to Blue Peter, who shook it solemnly. “I am ever pleased to shake hands with you, Peter, but you must remember that the captains must always shake hands. If the other team’s captain were to be a blackguard, your worst enemy, had boasted in the pavilion of swiving your sister, has beaten your team by bare-faced cheating, and was grinning at you like an ape, then you must still put a good face upon it and shake hands. It is the finest of games, but it is still a game, and not something to fight duels over. That is its greatest value, perhaps.”

They walked slowly back to the knoll, the Captain swinging the cricket-bag.

“Might I not kill the blackguard for abusing my sister after I have shaken his hand, Captain?”

“Why, of course! As long as it’s not about the cricket, and doesn’t inconvenience the cricket-club committee, then it would certainly be quite the right thing to do.”

Seated on the rug, reclining in the shade, leaning comfortably against the trunks of the trees, they cut the waxed string from the necks of beer-bottles, eased the corks out carefully and poured the cold beer into glasses.

“Oh, my! That is good!” said Blue Peter, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “Captain, would you be good enough to pass me those crustaceans?” Mumblin’ Jake’s picnic-basket included a damp cloth full of boiled shrimps.

“Surely, Peter!” the Captain passed the shrimps and a pot of pepper relish, “but you may call me Sylvestre, or even Syl, as this is my banyan day.” He took a bite of a sandwich of cold roast pork and mustard, then took a gulp of beer. The grim cast which had darkened his face for a year had faded, and he looked at ease. They ate in companionable silence for a while.

“I will speak freely, then, Sylvestre,” said Blue Peter. “I suspect that you have a hidden purpose in this, your banyan day, and that you wish to converse with me without the possibility of eavesdropping, yet to conceal that purpose within an apparent madcap lark, to prevent invidious or far-fetched conjectures among the crew.”

Captain Greybagges turned to look at Blue Peter.

“You should have been a lawyer, you scoundrel!” He took a draught of beer. “You are right, for the most part. The idea of the madcap lark came first, as I looked at those damn’ ledgers, but I had been seeking such an opportunity anyway. Do not underestimate the roborative effects of a madcap lark, though. This day, my banyan day, has already taken a great weight from my oppressed spirits...”

The Captain would have continued, but Blue Peter raised his hand.

“Indeed, Captain ... Sylvestre ... I can see that. I can also sense that you are going to discuss affairs of great importance. May I give you advice? In the land of my birth such matters were discussed with due ceremony, and that usually involved an exchange of information and compliments; ‘do your father’s feet still stand firm upon the earth? and does the sun still shine upon your seemingly-endless maize fields? and does your mighty heart still encompass the love of ten wives?’ That sort of thing. It’s all nonsense, of course, but it seemed to work. Perhaps we should colloquise for a while longer, enjoy your banyan day a little longer,” Blue Peter ate a shrimp and took a swallow of beer, “before plunging into matters profound and weighty.”

“In England we are not so different,” said the Captain, helping himself to a sausage. “In fact, there’s a phrase; ‘less of the old how’s-yer-father’ meaning ‘stop trying to cozen me and get to the point.’ As pretty maids are often the ones being cozened it has taken on the secondary meaning of amatory congress; a young lad from the Parish of Bow might say ‘I’m a-goin’ upta the ol’ Bull and Bush for a bit o’ how’s-yer-father’, meaning he would be going to the pub to find a lady of easy virtue. You are right, though, and I take your point. What do you wish to talk about?”

“Tell me about your boyhood, how you played cricket in sunlit carefree days.”

“Cricket? Carefree sunlit days? I did indeed play cricket on the village green, up at school and up at Cambridge, too, and I do love that England dearly, it is true. To play a game of cricket, even to watch a game of cricket, to spend all of a lazy sunny summer day just watching cricket, that is a rare delight. Yet even in those happy memories there are dark shadows. I was packed off to Eton, and that damn’ school nearly did for me. A brutal place where one is either the bully or the victim, take your choice. Cricket at Eton was politics, too, not the simple joy of a game on the village green.”

The Captain picked up a biscuit, examined it critically, then ate it.

“My young boyhood was happy, mind you. My mother passed away when I was young, and I only remember her as a kind of a vision, but my nanny, Goosie, was the kindest and most good-humoured soul that ever walked the green earth. My father - ‘the Pater’, as they made us say at Eton - was a different creature altogether. The mean old bugger spent his entire life obsessing about his damn’ estates, so he had nothing to talk about except the price of corn and the villainy of the yokels, and what the grasping old skinflint was thinking every waking minute was how to tighten further the screws on his field-hands and tenants. The money, some of it, went to making me a lawyer, because he wanted a shyster he needn’t pay, so that he could make his neighbour’s lives more miserable without spending his own money to do it. Eton, Cambridge, the Inns of Court ... and a damn’ good lawyer I was, too! I could exonerate the guilty or convict the innocent, as required, and take my fat fee whether justice was served or not. Some cases, though gnawed at me, until it occurred to me that the fine people in their fine clothes were themselves no better than thieves, or indeed pirates. Worse, in fact, for a lusty freebooter wagers his own life, not the lives of others, and does his business honestly with the edge of his cutlass, not with secret whisperings in dark corners and dirty deals in back-rooms. It further occurred to me, after I had broken a cider-jar over my father’s head and been disinherited, that piracy may be just as morally corrupt as the practice of the Law, but it is certainly much more fun. So here I am.

“We are pirates, Peter! The Free Brotherhood of the Coasts, for all its many faults, will take any buccaneer into its membership whether black, white, brown, yellow, red, or even,” he waggled his beard, “partially green. Even women! And all are equal! To be a pirate is to be more free, more democratical, than even those ancient Greek coves in Athens knew of. We take people’s money, and sometimes we have to kill them, but that’s a small price to pay for freedom. If you ever go to England, Peter, go as a pirate and be proud of it. They will either hang you at Tyburn or make you Equerry Of The King’s Chamberpot, it cannot be foretold which, but if you go as a would-be squire they will put you in a cage and charge gawpers a shilling to look at you, and half-a-crown to poke you with a stick.”

“Sylvestre, you have crushed my dreams!” laughed Blue Peter. “Is there indeed a custodian of the royal pisspot?”

“Indeed there is. He is called the Chamberlain of the Stool, if I recollect a’right. It is a position of great influence and power. I dare say the fellow doesn’t touch a po these days, that is merely the origin of the title. Such a fellow must have access to all the King’s private apartments and all of his private affairs, and so must be loyal and trustworthy.”

Captain Greybagges rose to get another bottle of beer from the bucket, and stretched lazily, looking out to sea, unable to resist scanning the horizon. He settled back down again, searching around for his knife to open the beer.

“Tell me of your boyhood, Peter, if you will.”

Blue Peter took a swallow of beer, wiped his mouth and burped.

“Where I was born there was little distinction between summer and winter. There was the season of the rains, but it was still hot then, so one couldn’t call it winter. Time was reckoned in lunar months, but I suppose I was about eight years old when I was given into slavery by my uncle, my mother’s elder brother. I was what you would call the heir apparent. My father was the chief - the sachem, if you will - of the tribe and I was his only son. My mother and my father died, one after the other, and, after a period of mourning of thirteen months, I was to be made chief. My uncle, who was acting chief, pro tempore, took me to the sacred grove alone, as was the custom, said the sacred words and cut my cheeks with these marks.” Blue Peter indicated the cicatrices on his face. “He rubbed ashes into them, then some fellows came along and he told me to go with them. I thought it was part of the ceremony, so I did.”

He drank some beer.

“Good Lord!” said the Captain. “Do you believe that wicked man killed your parents?”

“I’m not sure. He may just have taken advantage of circumstance. He had a son the same age as myself, and alike to me in looks. I believe he may have cut his own son’s cheeks, but savagely, to disguise him, and passed him off as me. Those that detected the substitution would pretend they hadn’t, since my uncle had been chief for thirteen months and, presumably, had firmly seized the reins of command. I was young, of course, and my recollection is fragmentary, so these are mere suppositions.”

“Why, then, did he cut your cheeks?” asked the Captain.

“So that I was unsuspecting of betrayal, and distracted by the pain of the cuts, most likely. Perhaps he was also afraid of the Gods; he had thus done his duty by custom, and had not killed me, other men had then taken me away, and I had gone willingly, so what befell me subsequently would be their evil-doing, not his.”

“Men, and women, will often lie, as it is the natural thing to do. I have often observed this, and not only as a brief in the courts, I assure you,” said Captain Greybagges. “Yet when a man begins to lie to himself each step he takes carries him further down the sloping path to Hell. You must loathe your uncle greatly.”

“I do indeed, but that has taught me the futility of hatred. The forest grows quickly, trails and rivers change their course, villages move. I cannot even be sure which barracoon I was taken to, since they are all alike from inside a stockade of logs. There are no maps of the interior of the African continent, nor likely to be. Retracing my steps back to my homeland is impossible now; it is quite literally a lost kingdom. Strangely, when I was a slave I never met a single soul from my own land, or indeed any slave who even knew of my country, so I have not spoken my own tongue since, except to myself. I met some few who spoke similar languages, so that we could talk after a fashion, but never my own mother-tongue.”

Blue Peter heaved himself up to get a bottle of beer. When he had made himself comfortable again against the tree, with a full glass in his hand, he continued.

“I will not speak of the barracoon, or of the sea-crossing on the slave-ship, as they are foul memories. I was bought by a family in Virginny, who, because of my scars and my size, thought it a fine jest to make me a page, and dress me in a little jacket and knee-britches of pink silk. This was a lucky thing for me, as a house-nigger I was not treated too brutally, and I was encouraged to learn a fine clear English and even to read and write. The plantation owner’s younger brother taught me, and gave me some Latin and Greek, too, and some other learning. He was a drunk and a pederast, but I think he had a genuine affection for me. He never molested me, and my times learning under his often-bleary tutelage were some of the happiest I experienced as a slave. The family were great despisers of the English, thinking all Englishmen to be effete, pompous and sly, whilst counting themselves rugged pioneers, despite their life of luxury and idleness. I have few illusions about the English, Sylvestre, but if the likes of Master Chumbley and his vile wife hate them, then they are the fellows for me! The dislike of the English is becoming widespread in the colonies, and it will smoulder into flame one day, I feel sure. Not all Colonials are like the Chumbleys, of course. As you once said, ‘the Colonials can be rare plucked-uns when they be a-riled-up’, and indeed they can be, but in such a circumstance the Chumbleys would be hiding under their beds a-shivering and a-praying, not getting a-riled-up, the sanctimonious hypocritical sods.

“When I was fourteen I punched the son of the family on the nose, which he richly deserved, and they flogged me and then put me to work in the fields like a beast of burden. To my small surprise the other slaves despised me as a house-nigger, so I had to punch a few of them, too, and got flogged again for damaging the livestock. The years in the fields put muscle on me, so, after the last flogging, I was able to pull the ring-bolt from the wall and knock the overseer unconscious when he came a-calling. I would have dearly loved to have killed him, but that would have led to a larger hue-and-cry, so I took his keys and chained him up with my shackles and gagged him with his own socks. I went to free the other slaves but only one of them was game, a skinny old fellow of the Kroo tribe. The Kroo boast that they’ve never been slaves or owned slaves, so he had a point to make, I suppose. Strangely, the Chumbley’s daughter, a skinny little madam who was always spying upon me, saw me and the Krooman sneaking away, but she only grinned and put her finger to her lips, childishly thinking us upon a mere lark, I suppose. We made our way to the Great Dismal Swamp and joined some other escaped slaves, cimarroons, who were living there. It was nearly as damn’ dismal as slavery, that swamp, so I took off for New Amsterdam. The few glimpses I’d gotten of the ocean on the slave-ship had intrigued me, so I signed on as a sailor. After a couple of voyages before-the-mast, I met Bulbous Bill Bucephalus in a tavern in New Orleans, he was sailing with Jean Lafitte back then, and I became a pirate. So here I am.”

“That is an extraordinary tale, Peter,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, “I understand better your detestation of the slave-owners of Virginny. A little suit of pink silk! That is almost satanic in its cruelty!”

Blue Peter threw an apple core at him, and they both laughed, then lay against the trees in silence for a while, gazing at the sea and sipping their glasses of beer.

“It has been truly excellent to sprawl here, eating, drinking and yarning with you on my banyan day,” said the Captain at last, “but I fear I must now darken the occasion with serious talk. As the Bard wrote ‘I now unclasp a secret book, and, to your quick-conceiving discontent, read you matter deep and dangerous’, and it is indeed deep and dangerous, what I have to say, so harken to me now!”

And Blue Peter turned to him, and listened.