Читать книгу Greenbeard - Richard James Bentley - Страница 7

CHAPTER THE FIRST,

or the Growing of the Captain’s Beard.

Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges was growing his beard, which was to say he was idling and drinking rum. If someone should ask him “What are you doing this afternoon?” he would say “I think I shall just sit and grow my beard.” Growing his beard would necessarily involve the drinking of rum, of course. And a fine beard it was, too! Lustrous and as yellow as Spanish gold, it reached nearly to the belt that cinched the black broadcloth of his coat over his hard flat belly. The belt from which hung his heavy cutlass in its black leather scabbard, the wide black belt that had three knives and two flintlock pistols thrust into it, easy to hand, for Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges was a pirate.

In this business of growing his beard, and drinking rum, he was ably assisted by Israel Feet, his First Mate, right-hand man and partner in many a villainy. Bulbous Bill Bucephalus was there too, the porcine sailing-master of Captain Greybagges’s ship Ark de Triomphe, and Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo, the giant African who was the Master Gunner. The four buccaneers were sitting around a wobbly table in the back room of Ye Halfe Cannonballe tavern, which was conveniently close to the quays of Port de Recailles, that nest of sea-wolves whose name would be first in any Baedeker of infamy. The back room was pleasantly cool, whilst the lane outside baked in the heat of the late Caribbean sun and the eponymous half-cannonball hung on its rusty chain with no breeze to make it swing and creak. Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges’s beard grew and the rum bottle passed around. Blue Peter lifted his little finger as he sipped his rum delicately, for although his face was decorated by tribal scars - the face so black it seemed blue in certain lights - and his teeth were filed to points, he aspired to be an English gentleman, an ambition which would have caused hilarity among the rough crew of the Ark de Triomphe, except that any such merriment would have been instantly fatal. His companions at the table were fellow officers of the ship, and so his equals, and accepted his cravings for refinement as no more than an endearing eccentricity. Blue Peter dabbed at his lips with a fine white lawn handkerchief, then tucked it into his sleeve.

“As Aeolus denies us his zephyrs we may surely take our ease, my friends,” he rumbled, “but we may with profit turn our thoughts to such stratagems and ploys as the future will surely require. Especially before we purchase another flask of this fine sugarcane distillate.”

“A-who? Zebras?” piped Bulbous Bill, his high-pitched voice incongruous coming from so obese a body.

“Arr! You fat fool! He means there ain’t no wind, but we oughter be a-plottin’ for when there is. Be. For when wind there be! Arr!” Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges’s ambitions were in an opposite direction to those of Blue Peter. He was a man of some education, but yearned to speak as though he had been born in a Dorsetshire hovel and schooled on a bumboat in salty Poole Bay. “Speshly afore we gets blootered. Arr!”

“Har! ‘Ee do have the right of that, and you ‘as me affy-davy on’t! Cheerly messmates all, look’ee! Har!” Israel Feet downed the rest of his rum and splashed some more into his tarred leather drinking-jack.

The pirates sat for a moment in silent contemplation, firstly at Israel Feet’s effortless grasp of the sea-rovers’ argot, for he hardly ever made more than a blurred kind of sense, but then at the implications of Blue Peter’s words. They were indeed running low in funds. Plunderable treasure had been scarce in recent times.

Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, to cool his brain and thus aid ratiocination, removed his black tricorn hat, revealing a shiny pink bald pate, in contrast to his ever-growing yellow beard.

“I could check out my newspaper contacts…” Captain Greybagges mused, adding “Look’ee” as an afterthought. He wrote an occasional gossip column upon piratical affairs for the Port de Racailles Gleaner, which was syndicated in the Tortugas Times, the Port Of Spain Plain-Dealer and even, to his delight, the Poole Advertiser, where the infamous Harry Paye would surely read it, or have it read to him at least. The recompense was welcome, of course, the prices of rum, tar, hempen rope, gunpowder and shot being what they were, but the main attraction of the arrangement was not the one-eighth-of-a-Reale-per-word but the quantity of scuttlebutt, rumour and chat that came to his ears. It was also pleasant to practise what the tutors of Eton and the Fellows of Cambridge had taught to him in the days of his more-or-less innocent youth. The scritch of goose-quill upon vellum had a comforting sound, and the influence of that pen – oh! but the Bard was right! – ensured that even cutthroat villains like Eddie Teach and that bloody jumped-up Welshman Henry Morgan were at least polite to him.

“Har!” Israel Feet cleared his throat, “There’s many that goes to Madame Zonga’s for lovesome sport and frolicking, ye’ll ken, and there’s many of them as’as loose tongues, look’ee, an’ damn yer eyes!” The company only wrestled with this for a second, for it was one of Feet’s more intelligable utterances. It was also known that Madame Zonga had a soft spot for Israel Feet, since he had been kindly to her in the early years of her career, when she had been merely Dottie Pigge. They nodded their understanding.

“Avast! Methinks we shall visit Madame Zonga’s betimes, after a bottle or two and a mortress of beef to settle the vitals. Ye can work your wiles and cozen some secrets out of the old trollop then, Izzie. Blast yer liver and vitals if ye cannot!” Captain Greybagges took a reflective sip of rum from his chased-silver goblet. The four were silent for a moment as each considered, in his own way, a vision of the rat-like first mate working wiles upon the well-upholstered Madame Zonga.

“The plantations of His Majesty’s North American colonies are supposed to have enjoyed much prosperity of late,” opined Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo, “and they may be ripe for plunder and rapine. A raid by land would be necessary, but that has not been unknown to gentlemen of fortune such as ourselves, surely?”

“Arr!” said Captain Greybagges, fixing Blue Peter briefly with his grey eyes, and said no more. The first mate and the sailing master sympathised with the African, for he was an escaped slave and regarded slave owners with a natural distaste - and indeed who of the Free Brotherhood of the Coasts did not? – but even with his elegant tact he had still reminded their captain of the celebrated success of Bloody Morgan in taking the City of Panama, a hugely-profitable land operation that Captain Greybagges had refused to take part in, thinking it ill-judged and foolishly risky. He had been proved wrong, and had not shared in the enormous, the almost-unbelievable plunder. But who could have foreseen that the Spaniards would have left Panama’s western approaches undefended? A bloody jumped-up Welshman, that was who. They kept their own counsel and avoided Blue Peter’s black eyes, their whites yellow and blood-shot, as he looked to them for support.

“Arr!” squeaked Bulbous Bill Bucephalus, eager to change the subject. “I buys me hot peppers from a half-breed cove name of Denzil.” The searing chillied stews that the sailing-master made were much appreciated by the piratical crew of the Ark de Triomphe as a sovereign cure for hangovers. He could not be expected to maintain his vast bulk on an unvarying diet of oatmeal burgoo and salt-horse and pease, after all, so even the ship’s cook did not object too much when he was booted out of the galley to let Bulbous Bill perform culinary experiments. It was true that Bulbous Bill’s cookery was not always entirely successful – when he had simmered a hyena with pot-herbs, for example, he had made himself a laughingstock – but any additions to the menu were usually welcome. They sensed that there was more yet to come, and waited patiently as Bulbous Bill sipped rum from his lignum-vitae beaker and knotted his brows to concentrate his thoughts.

“The man Denzil, ye sees, he gets his hottest peppers from them Spanish Americas. Goes down there in his little boat, a-sailin’ an’ a-fishin’. One o’ them double-ended canoes with a littler canoe on the side on two planks, it be. At the first he got them peppers from Cayenne, of course, but he likes ’em hotter an’ hotter, so he sails up and down the coast, and sometimes he wanders inshore a-ways. Looking fer them peppers.” Bulbous Bill took another pull of his rum. “Anyways, being a half-breed, his ole Carib indian mother taught him the Carib lingo. Wasn’t the right lingo to talk to them Cayenne indians, ye ken, but it gives him the advantage of not bein’ civilised as are the likes of us so he picks up a lot of those Cayenne indians’ lingoes fair quickly, and now he speaks their lingoes pretty well.” The pirates were paying close attention now. “Seems to me, iffen we was to be friendly, and axes him nice, and gives him some money, he may keep his ears open for things that may be to our advantage. Them indians hates them Spaniards like poison, so they do. They’d give us the nod outa sheer devilment an’ spite, an’ be damned pleased with theyselves for doing so.”

“That,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges musingly, “is a very good idea. A very good idea indeed.” He blinked. “Pon me life, ye rascal! A blasted fine piece o’ headwork it be, and here’s me hand upon’t, damn yez!” He roared, pounding the wobbly table so that the pirates all grabbed for their drinks. “A fat fool ye may be, but ye be a fat fool with a headpiece upon yez! Blast me vitals, else!”

“Bill, old chum, I am in admiration of your sagacity!” agreed Blue Peter. “That is indeed a capital lucubration! A cerebration of the very first order! I observe, in passing, that was exactly the strategy that Sir Francis Drake utilised in his matchless endeavours to relieve the Dons of their coinage, specie and bullion back in the days of Good Queen Bess, and I can give no higher praise than that! Let us refill our glasses and raise them in a toast to Bulbous Bill Bucephalus, that paragon of incisive analysis!”

Blue Peter filled Bulbous Bill’s lignum-vitae beaker with rum, the bottle nearly lost in his huge blue-black hand, then Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges’s chased-silver goblet, then Israel Feet’s tarred leather drinking-jack and lastly his own tumbler of precious diamond-cut Bohemian crystal, and the buccaneers toasted Bulbous Bill Bucephalus, who simpered modestly, his many chins and jowls wobbling. Israel Feet then proposed a toast to Great Good Fortune, with many a “Har!” and many a “Scupper me gizzards, else!” and so the rum bottle was empty. Captain Greybagges looked at his officers fondly.

“So, messmates, we have our duties for the morn. Bulbous Bill shall proceed with his wily plan to sound out this Denzil cully, softening his heart towards us with sweet words and golden coins. Izzie here shall cozen Madame Zonga for the secrets that sleepy satisfied coves may have murmurred in the shell-like ears of her girls. I myself shall write letters to my correspondents and snitches,” and here he smiled at Blue Peter, “and Blue Peter may plot fire, ruin and plunder upon the slave-drivers of Virginny and Kentuck, for his plan to raid by land may be useful in days to come. I am not agin the notion, ye sees. No, I only wish to see it happen when it is timely and we are well prepared, for the Colonials can be rare plucked-uns when they be a-riled-up.”

A feeling of harmony and piratical brotherhood came over the four buccaneers with these well-chosen words. Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges placed his black three-cornered hat back on his shiny bald pate, signalling that the plotting was over and that the roistering should begin. He pounded the table with his meaty fist. “Wench! Bring us rum! Damn ye eyes! Bring us RUM!” The serving-wench peered round the corner from the tap-room and nodded. “And can we have some nibbles, too?” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges.

In the morning, the late morning, Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges woke from deep slumber in the Great Cabin of the Ark de Triomphe, the high sun shining in his eyes through the tall stern windows. He yawned and rubbed his eyes, the hanging bunk swaying on its ropes, then roared for his servant Mumblin’ Jake to bring him hot water and a cannikin of coffee. As he sipped his coffee and Mumblin’ Jake shaved his head Captain Greybagges recalled the previous evening. In the event, only Israel Feet had taken himself to Madame Zonga’s establishment, with a foremast jack to carry the lantern and protect the drunken First Mate from footpads and ruffians. (What was the town coming to? Upon a time it had been safe for an honest pirate to walk the streets at night!) The Captain, the sailing-master and the Master Gunner had felt too logy with food and drink to climb the hill, so had settled for a game of Bezique and a few glasses of Smoking Bishop to round the evening off. The mortress of beef had indeed been very good, the Captain recalled, a little bland perhaps, what with the goat’s milk and soppets of sourdough bread, but surely that only enhanced the flavours of the meaty skirt-of-beef ? He felt sharp-set and ready for breakfast at the mere thought of it.

After Mumblin’ Jake had helped him into his freshly-brushed black broadcloth coat and spit-shined black top-boots Captain Greybagges sent his servant to call the officers to join him for breakfast in the Great Cabin. He buckled on his wide belt with the cutlass, tucked the knives and pistols into it and carefully placed the black tricorn hat on his freshly-shaven head; a pirate captain should look like a pirate captain, even at breakfast. The other officers joined him at the table as the ship’s cook and Mumblin’ Jake set out the gleaming cutlery and brought bacon, eggs, lamb chops, sausages and grilled tomatoes in chafing-dishes, toast in a rack of silver and a tureen of Bulbous Bill’s fiery chilli. Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo was the last to arrive. He had drunk the least during the evening and had been up with the lark to ensure that the pirate crew were not skimping on their duties, skiving or otherwise swinging the lead. Slushing the yard-arms with rancid tallow was a dirty job even if one was supervising, so he had taken time to wash and change. Blue Peter liked to be informal in the mornings and so he wore only a white silk shirt and sky-blue knee-britches and not the turquoise moiré coat, white lace stock and powdered periwig of the night before. Informality only went so far, however, so a short cutlass with a brass knuckle-duster grip and a horse-pistol like a small cannon were thrust into the multicoloured sash around his waist.

Israel Feet had perhaps drunk the most and looked even more rat-like than usual, his eyes red and watery and a hangdog expression on his face. After a plate of eggs and mixed grill, a bowl of chilli and a quart of black coffee his looks improved and some colour came back to his narrow pale features.

Captain Greybagges kindly waited for his First Mate’s recovery to proceed a little, helping himself to buttered toast and marmalade, then questioned him gently on his cozening of Madame Zonga. Israel Feet answered at length and, in amongst a barrage of “Hars!”, a number of “Scupper me gizzards, elses!” and even a solitary “Rupture me kidneys if I should tell a lie, messmates!” they understood that the First Mate had been hospitably received by Madame Zonga, that because of his consumption of rum he had only been able to complete the first of her famous Six Lessons, that the Lesson had been free because she liked him despite this amatory faux-pas, but that she had not been forthcoming with any information useful to buccaneers eager for plunder.

“No mind, Izzie, me ole fighting-cock,” said the Captain. “Maybe she’ll hear of something in days to come. Let’s see if Bill here can’t glean something from his mate Denzil.”

“Aye-aye, Cap’n. I’ll go over s’arternoon,” piped Bulbous Bill. “I needs summa them peppers anyways.”

Blue Peter drank the last of his coffee and wiped his lips fastidiously with a linen napkin. “Mr Feet and myself shall keep the crew at their labours, methinks. The futtock-shrouds need serving and parcelling, the harpins are quite poorly catted and there are always cannon-balls that need to be chipped, alas.”

When his lieutenants had gone about their tasks and Mumblin’ Jake had cleared the remains of their morning repast from the table Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges took out his writing-case from beneath the bunk. The teak writing-case opened along a brass piano-hinge to form a sloped lectern, its green leather surface lifting to reveal sheafs of paper and vellum. An inkwell, sealed with a brass lid, contained blue-black oxgall ink and a compartment held goose-quills. Captain Greybagges was very fond of the writing-case, which had previously belonged to some hoity-toity Austrian aristocrat (whom the Captain had so disliked that he’d been glad when the ransom was quickly paid, as he would have otherwise have killed the stuck-up sod and been out-of-pocket) and he admired it as he whittled a fresh goose-quill into a nib. For the most part of half a dog-watch he composed letters to his informants, the scritch-scratch of quill on parchment audible to his servant polishing the silverware and mumbling in the Captain’s pantry. There was an occasional crash, thud or shouted order from the deck above, but these were the normal sounds of a fighting ship and did not disturb his concentration in the least. He read the letters through again after he had sanded them and the ink was dry, nodded to himself and wrapped them carefully in vellum packets closed with great blobs of red sealing-wax squelched down with the black onyx stone of his ring. He took a small key on a fine gold chain from around his neck, opened a secret compartment in the writing desk and took out a small booklet. With scissors he cut squares from the booklet. Each paper square was printed with an image of a death’s-head blowing a post horn, the horn muted with a bung, and the inscriptions Ten Reales and Postage Paid. He glued the squares to the vellum packets with gum arabic. The Captain seemed a little furtive while he did this, glancing over his shoulder to ensure nobody was looking through the stern windows and keeping an eye on the door. Some of a pirate captain’s secrets are best kept even from his officers and crew, and the Tristero company’s clandestine postal service was surely one of them. He tucked the packets into an inside pocket of his coat and called for Mumblin’ Jake.