Chapter Three - Paradise Lost

Forty yards away the Conception lay beached on the shore, listing on its side with its masts poking in amongst the palm trees that lined the shores. The air was thick with the stench of boiling tar, which hung suspended in a great black cauldron and fumed over a smoldering fire of driftwood. The pungent odor mixed with the sultry, tropical air to create a heavy, wet blanket of fumes that clung to one’s skin and soaked right into the pores. In the midday sun the heat and smell became overpowering, and it was for this reason that Ben was now stripping down for a short swim.

Careening was the most cumbersome, filthy and exhausting job Ben had yet faced. The sides of the ship had to be scraped clear of barnacles, organic growth and sea worms. The worms infested these tropical waters and bored so many holes into the hull that a new ship could not last a year here if it was not well-maintained. Once it was scraped clean major leaks would be patched, which was why the ship’s carpenter, Fraser, was paired up with Ben on this job. Once the seams were repaired, the whole hull was covered with boiling tar to kill any insect life and protect it from further leaks and infestation. It was a vital process, especially when a ship relied upon speed for its survival. Captain Caldwell fully expected to be twice as fast once they were done. But it was a long, tiresome labor, which Ben and Fraser were left to complete with only the Lascars to help.

First the ship had to be unloaded of goods that could not be secured. The heaviest items, such as cannon, had to be removed by block and tackle or they risked disastrous consequences as the ship was rolled onto her side. The operation was difficult, and it put the crew of the Conception in a vulnerable position until the ship could be righted and armed once again. To be safe, Captain Caldwell had six of the cannon unloaded and then trained them on the entrance to the bay. This way they could at least mount some semblance of defense if an enemy ship were to try to come within range.

Once all was secure the ship was carefully beached and rolled over as the tide went out. Hendricks, the first mate, took a hunting party inland to find game. Captain Caldwell sought out the locals to trade the cargo they had taken thus far. Meanwhile, Ben and his work party began the task of scraping down the hull.

Now, halfway through the first day of the process, Ben swam in the shallow surf to cool off and reflect for a few moments. It struck him that he was somewhat happy. He had respect among the crew, responsibility for a job, albeit a mundane one, and more money to his name than he would earn in a year of fishing at home. True, he was uneasy at times, but at this moment such cares were forgotten. The sun was warm; his muscles were sore and the surf felt good as it cleansed his body. He felt strong, standing as the surf raced in across his legs, feet sinking into the sand and shells washing past his ankles. He gazed at the Lascars who worked under his direction; the same men who still feared this boy that slew their captain. Some proud animal sense grew within him, and he let the feeling flow through his veins. Nevertheless, there was something disturbing about it which he did not understand, yet felt.

“Hey, boy, you work too hard!” called John Buck, who swaggered along the beach in a ridiculous plumed hat.

“Where are you off to, Buck?”

“Captain says I’m off to join the hunt,” said Buck, but he smiled broadly and lowered his voice suspiciously as he approached. “But, between you and me, I’m wearing my Sunday best so I can find a bride.” Buck winked as he spoke, looking slyly back over his shoulder towards the crude marketplace where the captain was bartering.

“A wife?” laughed Ben.

“No, no, no you foolish dog. A wife will drive you crazy. All I want is a bride for a few hours. My plumage should draw one out, if I’ve any knowledge of women.”

“Well, best of luck in your courting,” joked Ben “I would not have thought you to pass up a good dowry for a few hours pleasure”.

But here Buck lashed out and sneered. “I’ll take a dowry and anything else I need, boy. You just see to it that your captain thinks I’m off a-hunting for a boar.”

Ben liked a good joke, and John Buck was always good for one, but there was something dark about piracy which Ben was trying not to face. It was expressed in Buck’s quick, almost flighty turn from humor to threats, and in his vague, shifty designs on island women. Moments like this crept into Ben’s conscience, threatening it with dark, unmentioned things. Gilliam was gone, but he was not the only ugly soul on board. Like it or not, Ben had joined them.

As if to display that the world reflected his own inner conflict of emotions, Ben suddenly heard concerned voices from the Lascars in whatever language they spoke, uneasy fear moving quickly into panic in those tones common to all human fright. In a moment he saw the cause: the ship had settled into the wet sand and shifted. As it moved, a beam that had suspended the cauldron of tar was knocked loose above, and chains now swung the steaming vessel in an arc out away from the ship and then back around full-circle to slam into the hull. With the force of the sudden impact the hot tar erupted from the enormous iron pot and covered one of the Lascars.

The man emitted a hideous scream as Ben ran splashing through the surf to help him. Ben heard unrecognizable words filled with confusion and alarm from onlookers as he emerged from the shallows and covered the distance to the man’s side. The water was alive with boiling pitch and steam. The tar burned Ben’s bare skin as he took hold of the man and pulled him into the surf. Steam hissed all around and he emerged, carrying the man to relative safety and laying him on the sand. The pitiful soul was nearly dead.

Ben tried to calm the man, whose stiff limbs were shaking uncontrollably. His wild, pained eyes were glazing over. Another of the Lascars came to his side and spoke with him in tearful, hurried language. Ben heard Captain Caldwell running up the beach towards the commotion, as well as a crowd of local villagers. It became a gawking mass of foreign faces. Ben became aware of the stench of burning flesh mixed with the noxious fumes from the tar. Looking down, he noticed his own forearms covered in tar and raw, red flesh. Strips of burned flesh hung like white silk from his arms. In a sickening moment he realized that through his heroics he, too, had become seriously hurt. The voices jabbered around him and the crowd pushed in. The smells mixed in the heavy air and began to cloud his thought.

Fraser came to his side and laid him down. Ben heard Morogh Caldwell yelling and saw his barrel chested shape literally hurl people out of the way to get through to the boy’s side. Somehow, he knew the Lascar was dead. Ben scanned the faces which stared down at him and saw the Lascars, the natives staring with unfamiliar faces, everyone gawking and jabbering away. None of it made sense. His vision was getting hazy. He focused on one poor, hair-lipped boy who was staring at him and felt compassion, despite his wounds. His thoughts became clouded, and all sense seemed to leave him in this world. Ben began to be filled with both fear and consciousness of numbing pain.

A nightmarish vision crept upon him, blending the sounds, smells and images of chaos into a sickness that transported him downward, spinning as he went. Tar and sand, salt and laughter – was it laughter? He saw the painted face of the great headless Lascar grinning at him with blood red gums and heard the pained shriek of Gilliam, dying on the deck before him. As his loss of senses turned to a loss of consciousness, he heard Fraser comforting him in slow, muffled tones. He heard the Captain, his voice thin and distant as if in another room, calling to him. Then, in a brief moment of clarity, he saw a beam of sunlight landing on the hair lipped boys face. He heard nearly perfect Latin phrases issuing from his grotesquely misshapen mouth, “via tecum, via tecum!” measured and serious, and then louder and more passionate. It was madness. And then all was dark.


* * * * * *


It had been a busy day. There was a guest in the alcove, sleeping in his Master’s bed, but it could not hinder the operation. Kintana swept the dirt floor of the grotto and arranged the lab neatly. Once the area was orderly, Kintana mixed some grain into a paste and cooked flat, tasteless bread over the furnace. He ate alone; his Master would not require food. Indeed, Petre had not eaten in weeks. The old man was just outside in the clearing, studying the sky with his telescope and recording slow, deliberate calculations in a long, thin book of parchment.

Kintana took his compass and began to mark off the points of the compass rose in the dirt floor. At several locations he placed short, fat candles. The he organized several curious items onto the table. There were more candles, small containers of various ingredients: salt, sulfur, incense, water and a finely ground chalk powder, among other things. A large, leather bound bible was there, as well as another small book that was filled with symbols and writing in a variety of languages.

Outside, Petre beckoned and Kintana came to his side. The two followed the jungle path to the beach and washed themselves clean in the shallows of the tide. They put on fresh white clothing and walked slowly back to the grotto by the light of the full moon above. In the cave, Petre dipped a sprig of hyssop into the water and sprinkled them both three times. Next, he filled a censer with incense and began to hum quietly as he walked clockwise around the room, perfuming every corner. When it was done, the censer was left burning.

Petre now took the books and moved to the center of the room, where he read from the Psalms, “Judica me Deus…” As the words filled the room, Kintana began to feel the effects of the incense. The perfumed air was elevating his senses. When the hymn was done he brought the old man a sword, which Petre then used to begin to trace shapes in the sand all around him. Slowly and deliberately the floor took on a geometric life of its own. Kintana sat quietly now and observed as the old sage began his work. The candles and incense gave the room an eerie, reddish hue which bounced off of the rocky subterranean walls and settled down in the corners. A low, guttural sound began to be emitted by Petre to which Kintana, no stranger to the ritual, joined in. In time, Kintana would be filled with dread, he well knew, but fear of the Lord was the beginning of all wisdom. The operation must continue. Kintana’s misshapen mouth formed the words as clearly and confidently as any Oxford trained scholar. In perfect synchronization with his Master, he began to utter the sacred Names of God.


* * * * * *

Sound and darkness met Ben and swirled about his head. It was a human sound, but no recognizable words, just the soft, low humming of vowels flowing gradually into one another. Like the movement of surf the sounds came and receded, as the darkness found a red glow in its recesses and gently swathed the cavernous walls around him with it. Ben’s lungs were filled with the stench of sulfur and acrid fumes which seemed to fill the place, burning his lips, his throat and his lungs.

“Oh, God,” he moaned, “what have I done?”

Pain overwhelmed him. In the demonic atmosphere around him the thick fumes began to be overpowering. Sweat drenched him to the bone. Vertigo overtook Ben’s senses and guilt sickened him until his soul curled up into a ball and prayed for nothing save survival. Darkness again overtook him, and with it came the silent sleep of oblivion.

Chapter Two - The Voyage to Ile Sainte Marie

Hours after the carousing died down the ship was steadily rolling southwest through calm seas. Several crew were passed out in a stupor on deck. Most were below decks in their quarters. Fraser, the ship's carpenter, was at the helm on watch. In his newly acquired cabin, Captain Caldwell was still up talking with his mate and confidant, Hendrickson. As the two passed the late hours, talk turned from the day's events to their new itinerary.

"Ile Sainte Marie is about a week away given these winds," said Hendrickson. "We've got wood and water enough with what the moors had stocked, but they stocked no beer or rum and ours has fallen short"

"Mmmn, they'll be craving an holiday when they touch land again, I'll warrant. We can't waste time, though. She's a cursed slow beast. Needs a good careening, and that's risky if we dawdle..."

"What kind of crew you want to put on that job? Gilliam's gone, and his lot's a useless litter of pups without him to prod em' along. I can take a cat to them, but we'll wind up having to make an example and we've no men to spare."

"Look, the Lascars are the men for most of the work. I don't wan't Gilliam's crew running them, though, because they'll be at each others throats before the ship's on it's side. I don't need more dead bodies to run my rigging. What if we put Fraser and the boy over them, they're scared o' that one already and he won't abuse 'em. If they do act up Fraser'll know to stand clear and the boy ain't much of a loss."

"Careful there, Morogue, you were singin' the boy's praises in your cups this evening."

"Aye, he did damn well today. I thought those devils were going to jump in the sea for fright when they saw him waving that bloody head through the air, grinning like Goliath's giant skull. I'd give two crowns to know whatever possessed him to do such a thing, but God save him it worked. Still, if he's as strong as he seemed today he'll do fine, and if not we don't need him."

It was a clear, calm night. Ben lay flat on the quarter deck, watching the stars pass slowly between the dark shadows of the sails above. He smelled the cinnamon, cloves, oranges and tea down in the holds below. A coil of rope made a pillow for his head. Not far away, to the stern, a short but rather ornate set of wooden stairs led up to the poop deck, where the evening’s watch officer, a scottish carpenter named Fraser, manned the helm. Earlier, the great stern lanterns which adorned the taffrail of this uppermost deck had been lit in celebration, but the lights were out now for safety and to conserve the oil. In the opposite direction another set of stairs led down from the quarter deck to the waist, where several other crew were laid out for the night. As the beer and the ceaseless roll of the ship took their toll on his fatigued body, he wandered off into a fitful sleep.

He dreamt of home, but of odd, unconnected and trivial things. First, he was minding a fire. Then, he was counting some unspecified items to distribute amongst his brothers. There was idle chatter as neighbors wandered in and out of the scenes. Curiously, a ball of string kept working its way into his field of vision. It struck him that he wanted that string, as it was a useful item, but it kept eluding his grasp and he kept getting distracted.

For the longest time he kept repeating parts of the dream, waking and wandering back into it. He began to speak with his mother, who coddled him like he was a young child again. They spoke about supper, and she gave him some small tasks to do. As he started to turn over her garden, he carefully chose a small spade and began to work the soil. He broke piles of new soil, turning them over and depositing the loose loam back upon itself. Then he knelt down to work the soil by hand: breaking up the clumps, shaking out the fine, dark earth. He smelled the rich, wet soil and recognized the familiar scent of spring. Earthworms stretched out of small holes and lolled back into the rills and crevices of the garden. He leaned side to side as he reached to make sure the whole area had been properly prepared, and in so doing discovered that he had apparently filled a shallop with the soil and sat now in the middle as it lapped in the waters of the bay. He looked up from within the vessel, wondering if his mother had noticed, and watched the stars brighten into the darkening sky. The sky and the soft cloud of the milky-way stretched on forever, till he lost himself in it and remembered no more. He woke up to the motion of the ship and the sound of birds chattering with the dawn.

Now, it was well known aboard the Conception that, although all sailors were by nature superstitious, there was none so afflicted by the trait than Captain Morogh Caldwell. A big, barrel-chested man marked as much by his physical strength as his sense of purpose, it was odd to see one so strong bent so easily by his idiosyncratic fears. Nevertheless, it was well known that Morogh put great faith in fortune-tellers, feared the curse of a Jonah and clung to anything that brought him a positive turn in fortune. And so, it was natural that the man would treat young Ben as somewhat of a good luck charm in the days to come.

For Ben, this was a welcome turn of events. The crew had changed their estimation of the boy overnight. The sentiment was instinctive and uniform across the crew, but had they not done so of their own will, they would have soon followed the example of their Captain when they saw his new appreciation of the boy. It was evident the evening after the battle in his drunken toasts to the lad, as it was in the way he gave him simple jobs to do here and there, where he would have ignored him in the past. Moreover, with Gilliam gone, Ben lost his one great tormentor. Life aboard the ship became quite passable as they made their way south towards Madagascar and its smaller, outlying islands.

On the morning that they spied Ile Sainte Marie, Ben witnessed first-hand another spectacle of the Captain’s superstitious nature. The cargo they had taken from the Moors had contained a number of bamboo crates filled with exotic birds. There were golden pheasants and a number of peacocks, as well as several species of quail and white doves. The pirates were not accustomed to caring for the animals, and the noise and smell had brought a communal decision to house the makeshift cages up on deck. They hoped to make it to port before they lost too many of them, as some speculated that they might bear a fair price, although none really knew for sure.

On this morning it happened that a few of the doves had died in the night, so a sailor from the Carolinas named John Buck decided to have them for breakfast. Buck had his hand in the cage when one bird suddenly flapped about and scared him out of his wits. Quick as lighting he drew his hand from the cage and out flew the dove, who made a bee-line to the open door of the Captain’s cabin.

The outburst that followed from within caused poor Buck to go pale as new sail. The Captain, first in fear and then rage, roared and railed about the place trying to expel the bird. “By God and the devil who let that bird out of it’s cage! I’ll have his skin for an omen like this!” the Captain fumed. “Damn bird flew right in the door. Who was it? You, Buck? By hell there better be no deaths aboard this ship excepting yours or I’ll kill you myself!”

“I swear, sir, ‘e was dead as stone when I drew him out and ‘e was resurrected in my hand. Like as to raise the dead, it were, and it frightened me awful!”

Grabbing a water pail the captain beat the man until he ran from him. Morogh’s dander was up. With a look on his face which Ben had heard referred to as “the Caldwell snarl”, the Captain proceeded to chase Buck below deck with a flurry of blows to the head, shoulders and anything else unlucky enough to remain in reach.

“Goddamn Carolina cane farmer no better than a Jonah! Get those birds off of this ship before we’re all doomed! It’s no good, I say, a bird flying in my doorway. Get ‘em all off before I get my pistols.”

With that every man on the weather decks began a hurried, chaotic effort to open the cages and release the birds. It was comical, to say the least, as the birds themselves screeched, squawked and flapped about; a mix of white, gold and rainbow colored feathers flying loose and fluttering about the ropes and sail. In a few moments there was an awkward avian host rising from the ship and clumsily forming small flocks which ranged towards the now visible island of Ile Sainte Marie.

The Captain returned to his cabin to fume in silence. Buck nursed his wounds below. The rest of the crew had a good laugh, though careful to keep the sound of it down. It was true that a bird in the room was an ill omen, and as much they laughed about it they quietly wondered if he might, indeed, have just cause for concern. But the channel leading into the harbor was coming into view. They had a rich prize and a good luck token of their own on board.

Ben laughed with the rest of the men and gazed out at the sandy white beach that skirted the shoreline. Beyond it lie a lush green swath of jungle, some hilly outcroppings and distant mountains. Along the beach, though far-off, he thought he could make out one or two figures walking and some type of hut. It was on the east side, though, and as they came up to the southern shore to ride into the harbor he lost the beach from view.

On the eastern beach of Ile Sainte Marie, Jabir al-Sahaar, known locally as Petre-the-aged, collected palm fronds from their carefully laid out positions on the beach. He was dressed in white, as was his companion, a small Malagasy boy who assisted in gathering the palm branches. Arranging them in bundles, they carried them to one of several small barrels by the hut. One by one, Petre held them over the open vessel and brushed the salty residue off of each, focusing on each measured action like a ritual. The fine, white powder had almost filled the cask.

“Kintana, take this and seal it,” he muttered, gesticulating to the boy. Kintana carefully lifted the open container and trudged off through the sand towards the forest edge. Here the light colors of sand met the rich green hues of the island flora, interspersed with the darker stone of the volcanic hills which rose slowly towards the center of the island. Kintana switched shoulders as he entered under the canopy, listening to the frogs as they quieted down for the morning. It was a short trip to the cave. A well-worn path followed one rocky outcropping for a spell, then cut around a shoulder of rock which rose like a pillar from the jungle floor. Beyond this, climbing a bit and bearing to the right, he arrived at the vaulted entrance of a small grotto.

Nothing could hold back the jungle from its natural expansion into every crack and crevice of the stone, but the ground directly outside the cave had been cleared. What’s more, the rock face rising directly above the entrance was charred and black with a mass of soot and ash that permanently marked the stone and colored any plant hardy enough to grow here. From within, a thin yet steady stream of smoke issued forth almost every day, today bringing no exception.

The boy, who had lived here many years now, paid no mind to the outward appearance of the grotto. As he carried his cargo inside, he passed the cryptic figures etched in the stone by his Master. Up and down the arch of the entryway, scrawled figures adorned the rock. Some were latin inscriptions, while others seemed to be occult symbols. At the very top of the archway was a great snake, circling back upon itself and devouring its own tail in a figure eight. Down either side were a menagerie of birds, basilisks, dragons and creatures which combined the parts of many animals into one. Kintana ignored it all as he stepped inside the cavern.

To the right was a small living space. On the floor lay several large oriental rugs. A small bed was accompanied by several ornate asian furnishings, all of which were stacked high with books and manuscripts. A telescope stood on a teak and brass tripod in the corner. Other mysterious devices and contraptions glinted out of their dark hiding places, but this was not where Kintana was headed.

He bore to the left as he entered the place, crossing through a less furnished but equally cluttered area to reach a small work bench. On the way he passed long tables stacked with glass. There were bottles, jars and tubes of every size. Some were filled with unnamed liquids, others were empty and lined up in racks. There were alembics and cucurbits, retorts and kerotakis, as well as numerous other types of distillation equipment. On one table a mortar and pestel had been left out, next to a plain earthen container. A small cast iron furnace sat between these tables and a large workbench. Over the workbench hung a myriad of tongs, bellows, hammers, pokers, planes, chisels and clamps. From these tools he chose a mallett and went to work on sealing the cask. The furnace kept it hot in here, so he worked quickly. When he was done he stacked it with several like it, checked on the fire and ran back to find his Master.

There was a breeze blowing on the shore today, which Petre stopped to enjoy as he waited for Kintana to return. Gazing out at the morning sea, Petre didn’t see the ship at first, coming out of the horizon with the rising sun behind it. But the movement eventually caught his eye. As he stared at the craft which was approaching the island he saw it silhouetted against the dawn sky. The lines of the craft were familiar to him, though the memory was distant. Closer to him he beheld birds, many birds painting a living rainbow in the sky, and a single white dove sailing out of the heavens. It came down as if to light upon him, but it passed him and landed on a small, square rock near his shelter. Turning, he approached the bird and held out his hand. It mounted his cupped fingers and gently cooed as he brought it inside. “A sign, indeed,” he thought, “but of what?”

Chapter One - Fortune Favors the Bold

A wooden keel will plow through water whatever hand lies upon the helm. At its awkward birth, the hull lumbers from the cumbersome staging of the shipyard down into the waiting salted bath. The ship’s bow splits the sea into a womb as the planks swell against the liquid embrace of the sea. Wrapped from stem to stern in the brine of its birth, the ship never leaves its true mother. She envelopes the craft however swift or slowly it may sail. When it moves, it knows her hand, however peacefully she may cradle or angrily discipline her charge. And once the craft’s days are done, she reaches up in the last, inescapable embrace, swallowing every beam, every timber, every canvas sail and human soul into the long dark sleep of the deep. Whatever human hand calls itself “Master” and steers that ship over the broad waters of the earth, the ship knows its true, beautiful and terrible parent - the true master of the voyage. Human deeds, good or ill, the sweat of human toil and the blood of life soaking those planks may ennoble a cause or populate the pages of history, but they are of little concern to those long boards as they groan against the sea and forever plow forward towards the next birth.

And so it is that when two step-siblings, ships different nations on the same great ocean, clash under the midday sun, the sea chooses no sides. They are, after all, loved no more or less than one another. If one ship is to no more feel the crisp breath of the zephyr on its white sheeted sails, straining the tackle and driving the prow to voyage across ocean’s kingdom, it is no loss. A mother always longs for her children to return. The sea is no different, so she watches and waits.

In the Indian Ocean she watched, one day, as two of her children quarreled in the sun. The heavy, humid salt air was stirred by a crisp breeze. Had she been that breeze she would have smelled the burning powder in the air, heard the shouts of human voices and felt the blasts of percussion as the volleys roared out from the guns. Up in the unencumbered air lay a test of captains and of crew, each side riding clear of cannon shot, yet struggling with sail and posturing to gain a lead on the other. They strove to cut in across their opponent’s path, firing a full broadside into the enemy’s prow. It was still early in the game, but it carried on into the afternoon, the two ships reeling in and out from one another, here and there exchanging fire.

Neither side was trying to flee. As the ships drew close the crews would exchange taunts in disparate languages. Some would utter curses or dare their enemy to come closer, brandishing muskets and cutlasses. Others kept feverishly working sail and cannon, knowing the slightest advantage could make or break the engagement. The crews, as a whole, were not disciplined but the sea was their life. Though they did not possess the ordered maneuvers of the English navy, they worked with the feverish passion of men who knew the face of the specter of death. The flags had begun as the national colors of Great Britain and Spain, but when the ships grew close enough to parley the English brig ran up the bloody red flag of piracy, signaling no quarter. The Spanish flag was just as quickly struck, and in its place flew a tattered black sheet with a curved white cutlass blazoned across its face. Both sides knew now, as both had suspected, that this was a battle between sea dogs.

Whereas many European pirates would join in league with one another, the Spanish ship appeared to be manned primarily by Moors, probably deserters from the navy of India’s Great Mogul. The ship itself was a two hundred ton caravel that did, in fact, appear to be of Spanish design. The name on the stern read Conception. The brig flying the red flag was named Decision, and was manned by a mix of sailors from England and the American colonies. When they saw the colors of the Moorish crew rise up they cheered as one with battle lust. They had been cruising the Arabian coast for pilgrims headed home from Mecca, but had been unsuccessful in spotting a quarry after two long months. The voyage was looking worse and worse as the season drew to a close, until, at last, they saw the Arab ship on the horizon.

Far above their heads a gull circled, watching the battle below. Every so often a burst of cannon fire would erupt below and a plume of white smoke would issue from the ship that fired. Curious, the bird rode the breeze for a while, listening to the distant shouts and the louder reports of the ships’ guns. After a while it grew uninterested, then wheeled and flew north, back to its fishing grounds. Far below, in the bow of the Decision, a young cabin boy watched the bird and dreamed that he, too, could fly far away from this scene.

His name was Ben Christian. He had been taken from his father’s fishing sloop off the coast of Nova Scotia some six months ago and pressed into to service by the pirates. It was a black day he wished he could forget. Nights he prayed for deliverance and prayed to wake up, as if from a dream. It was a life of violence and chaos. The violence, oddly enough, did not disturb him as much as the chaos. In New England there had been violence. He had grown up witnessing the cruel punishments of the witch trials in Salem. He had seen a hanging in Boston one day. On another occasion his father’s sloop put into Plymouth and he saw the severed head of King Philip, leader of the Wampanoag indian revolt that truly threatened the survival of the early colonies. The trophy was mounted and rotting on a pike at the entrance to the plantation, to warn and horrify local natives into submission. It had disturbed him, but in some way it had its place in the keeping of order and the protection of society. Order was the thing he missed most, so he created it as best he could by carrying out his duties on board with a sense of responsibility, regardless of the others around him. Many crewmembers were drunks or slackers. It was hard living as a prisoner, facing their daily taunting, doing much of their work and always running that day over and over in his mind, wishing for a different outcome. It was no use, however. An explosion of splinters near his head brought Ben back once more into the present.

The brig was manned with sixteen, twenty-pound cannons and it also mounted a pair of light swivel guns, one fore and one aft. Ben was running powder from the magazine below to the gunners toward the bow. He had refused to join the crew when asked repeatedly after his kidnapping, so he was not allowed to carry a musket or a pistol, but he did have his sailor’s knife tucked in his shirt. He had no choice but to serve as a powder monkey. He learned very quickly that any argument with the crew would bring a swift and vicious beating. An argument with the captain or Hendrickson, his quartermaster, could bring worse.

There was a very varied assortment of men on board the ship. Most came from England and Wales, and seemed to have deserted from either the King’s Navy or been picked up loafing in some Caribbean port. There were many from New England, as well, though Ben knew none save one of his neighbors, who was also taken the day they took Ben. His name was Gabriel Ellis, and he had tried to watch over Ben as much as possible, but a fever took him as they passed through the South Atlantic and headed for the Cape Horn. He grew too sick to move, lingered on for a week and was buried at sea shortly before they reached Madagascar.

And so, Ben found himself alone in a crew of cutthroats he would not join. Pressed into service but unrewarded for it, he served solely to escape punishment. Desperately hoping for some escape or to be freed, he was yet doubtful that it would ever happen. He managed to avoid trouble with most of the crew, and seemed to garner some respect from Hendrickson for his work ethic. There was one man, however, who he feared and avoided whenever he could. He was an older pirate named Gilliam. Gilliam was as evil a man as Ben had ever met. He beat the boy on many occasions and mocked him to entertain the crew. Two months ago they had taken a small and disappointing prize towards dusk one day. As the pirates searched the merchant vessel, one of the captured crew began to pray out loud. Gilliam laughed at the man and chided him “Yer maker should’ve saved ye afore we boarded. Damn ye for yer prayin, it’s curses what a man utters on my watch. Maybe yer God don’t hear so well, what with all the ruckus. Why don’t ye get a little closer and maybe then he’ll hear you, if he don’t damn you to hell...” And with that he pulled a long pistol from his waist and shot the man in the head. Ben knew then that he was as forsaken a soul as there ever was, and Gilliam was truly to be feared at all times.

A ship is a small place, and Ben could hardly avoid Gilliam forever. Even now, as the battle raged on, Ben found himself running powder to Gilliam, who manned the fore swivel gun. The gun was most effective at peppering an opposing ship’s crew with grapeshot, firing down over the gunwale and clearing the decks before a boarding was attempted. The caravel rode higher in the water than the brig, so the gun’s effectiveness was limited, but Gilliam knew how to use it and took more than a few men down from the rigging. In the last exchange the Moors had taken out the brig’s mizzen mast with a well placed ball. The deck was littered with sail and ropes and beams, and the ship was floundering without the sheet it needed to maneuver. The Arabs had rained shot in for several more exchanges, and clearly had the advantage. They came close now, preparing to toss grappling hooks and pull in to board the Decision, and as they did Gilliam fired into the jeering masses.

He was a vicious bastard, but he was a brave and vicious bastard. Moreover, he had been living this life for years, and it was no accident that he had lived so long. Gilliam knew how to fight and he knew the only other option was to die. As the Conception grew close he read the fear in some of his fellow crew’s faces and swore oath upon oath that the first to falter would feel his blade in their backs. There was no room for cowardice here, and he would not stomach it from anyone.

The ships came close and Gilliam fired another volley into the caravel. Muskets and cannons fired all around, and chaos began to rule the scene. Grappling hooks were tossed over and the ships crashed together. The smell of burning sail and gunpowder filled the air and stung Ben’s nostrils. His heart beat at a furious pace. He saw the Moors with pikes and swords rushing to board. He saw them toss missiles into the center of the deck. Shouts erupted and some took cover as grenades went off. Boarding planks were thrown into position and the men around Ben braced for the fight. Many had pikes and they met the oncoming Moors point to point. Towards the aft of the brig Ben saw the captain and the quartermaster rallying a handful of men with muskets. They brought their guns to bear on the leading boarders, filled them with shot and fell back to the helm. Snipers in the rigging on both ships fired down on the decks. Gilliam was a fool to stand so exposed, but he risked the fire from above to get in one more shot from the swivel gun as the Moors pushed through the English pikes. Men were falling everywhere, and the enemy seemed to be making a big push toward the captain.

Gilliam’s gamble paid off and he was able to take out three men just as they attempted to cross from the caravel onto the brig. A shout came up among the Moors, though, and they rallied back into the fray, led by an enormous Lascar with a tattooed face. He brandished a pike in one hand and a curved scimitar in the other. He had seen Gilliam’s defense and recognized an opponent that had to be met quickly. As he landed on the deck two New Englanders charged to meet him, but he cut one down and pinned the other to the broken mizzen with his pike. Gilliam rose to meet the challenge, cutlass in hand.

Ben watched as the two rushed at each other. There was no hesitation as they met, clashing steel on steel. Filled with fear, Ben crouched and watched as the two opponents desperately fought to kill one another. Gilliam and Ben were alone in the bow now, save for the bodies of the fallen. In the stern of the ship the Captain and quartermaster had fallen back with a group of men and were still holding off the onslaught. The great Lascar shouted in Arabic and those who had boarded with him joined the other Moors fighting their way towards the captain.

It was sudden when Gilliam was killed. More precisely, the blow was sudden. The Lascar used his size, strength and speed to knock one of Gilliam’s parrying blows wide, and then in an instant to thrust up and into his stomach. Ten years earlier he would have been able to stop the blow, but age wears on a man’s reflexes. He had sometimes wondered when this moment would come, but he was not one to accept it. With great effort he cried out for help, but the Lascar did not withdraw the blade and instead proceeded to raise him off the ground with it. “Aiigh, boy – damn you – help me…” cried Gilliam, and for a second longer Ben crouched paralyzed. But it was only that second that it took for him to process many thoughts at once. In that moment he knew he had to help this man, for honor’s sake and for his own survival. The Lascar would turn on him next, and he only had a vanishing moment to act. He grabbed a pike from the deck and charged at the giant, and for his last painful moment the dying pirate smiled. “Damn the moor to hell, boy…”

The Lascar grabbed the shaft of the oncoming pike with one hand, dropped the scimitar that was still impaled in Gilliam, and knocked Ben to the deck with a crushing punch. Ben fell in a heap next to Gilliam’s body, but he was not fazed. Deliberately and quickly he rolled closer to Gilliam and shoved his right hand under his blood soaked body. The Lascar changed hands with the pike and poised himself to lance Ben when the boy rolled away from Gilliam. In his hand was Gilliam’s pistol, and without hesitation he pulled the trigger and put a hole through the Lascar’s shoulder. The giant was blown back and down to the deck himself, but he was not dead. He used his legs and one good arm to hurl himself across the deck onto the boy.

Ben felt the suffocating weight of the Lascar pinning him to the deck. He smelled the sweat and smoke and blood of the battle and he struggled to move some part of him that could defend himself. He felt hands of steel clamping around his neck and saw the wild look in the painted devil’s eyes. There had been moments during his imprisonment when he thought death would be a comfort, but now that the prospect faced him he understood, as Gilliam had understood, that one must fight well or die. He felt a frenzied panic which became a strength to him, and in that panic he found his sailor’s knife, still tucked into the folds of his shirt. For all of his strength and skill the Lascar didn’t have a chance.

Ben, shaking, stood slowly on the deck, hands wet with blood. Looking towards the noise of the battle he saw two dozen moors fighting their way toward the faltering forces of the captain. In a moment he knew what he must do. He pulled the scimitar from Gilliam’s body and stood, feet spread wide, over the Lascar.

The captain had seen Gilliam fall and had begun to lose hope. Hendrickson, the quartermaster, fought bravely beside him along with twelve other good men, but the odds were fading rapidly. He had three pistols on his person and had fired two of them already. It seemed only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed. No quarter would be given. He had drawn his last pistol, along with his cutlass, for one last foray, when he heard a blast from the front of the ship. Four of the moors fell instantly to a close range volley from the bow swivel gun. The moors recoiled in horror, but it was not solely the sight of Ben wielding the gun that terrified them. As they turned to see where the blast had come from, he let go the gun and raised, in one hand, the bloody, tattooed head of the Lascar high for all to see. Their captain was dead, and with him the whole heroic power he had brandished. They floundered, and in seconds three more fell to the crew of the Decision. The rest scattered or froze on the deck. Ben picked up the reloaded pistol and approached from the bow as the captain ordered quarter to be given. It had been a bloody battle, and they would need more crew.

As evening fell the sky was a brilliant crimson, mixed with gold. Ben sat on the deck of the Conception and drank the beer he had been offered. All told about a score of the crew had survived, as well as the captain and Hendrickson. They took six moors to replace some of the dead. The brig was abandoned and burned to the waterline. Anything worth keeping was moved to the caravel. The ship still reeked of gunpowder, but it also smelled of the spices they carried in her hold. It was a good prize. On deck, Ben had been given a new pair of clothes taken off the captured ship. He now wore a silk sash and kept Gilliam’s pistol and his own knife in it. Under his hammock he kept the Lascar’s scimitar, though it was too big for him. As they drank and sang to celebrate the victory, hard fought though it was, the captain once more approached him. “You’re a stubborn boy, but you fight like a man. I’ll ask you again, will you go on the account with us?”

It was death to agree, at least in the courts of civilization. Caught here, between the devil and the deep blue sea, choices were less black and white. He missed his father, and his brothers, but here he felt something stir that he had not felt before. In the light of the moon and the ship’s lantern he took a quill and made his mark on the ship’s articles. When he was done he prayed, quietly, to himself. Then he sat for a bit with his beer. Talk turned to an island where the native girls would comfort a sailor in any way for a copper nail or some beads. The captain disappeared and returned with a bag of coins. “Here’s your share, boy.”

Many fathoms beneath them, the sea gathered the the charred hulk of the Decision and crushed it to her breast. In the darkening gloom of the deep she welcomed them all: the Welshmen, Moors and Gilliam himself, riding in the bow like some ghastly, spectral figurehead, racing the headless torso of the Lascar to the depths of her embrace, and to hell below.