The Guardship

“Marlowe, you son of a whore!” Allair roared. He had retreated to the great cabin and fetched a pistol, which he now held in his hand. “Think you can play me for a fool? Bloody bastard, come asking me to find you a silver table setting! How’d you know that bloody Nicholson’s silver was due in, eh? How’d you know?”

As it happened, Marlowe had noticed the invoice for the silver lying on Nicholson’s desk one afternoon while meeting with the governor on some other unrelated business, had devised the entire scheme in those few seconds, but to Allair he said, “I have no notion of what you are talking about, Captain Allair, but as I am now legally in command of this ship let me suggest-”

Standing in the doorway twenty-five feet away, Allair aimed the pistol at Marlowe’s head and pulled the trigger. The gun went off with a great bang, Allair having apparently used twice the amount of powder needed. Marlowe felt the rush of air, heard the scream of the ball passing by his head.

It was close, though not as close as young Wilkenson had come. Still, it occurred to Marlowe that he should get out of the habit of allowing others to shoot at him. But now the gun was discharged, and Allair had only his sword with which to fight.

“Cock your firelocks!” he heard Lieutenant Burnaby shout from the boat below. What he intended, Marlowe did not know. He leaned through the entry port and shouted, “Belay that! Weapons on half-cock, all of you,” and happily they obeyed before someone was hurt.

“Now, up on deck.” One by one the militiamen climbed awkwardly up the side of the ship and fell into line with firelocks shouldered. To Marlowe’s great relief, none of the Plymouth Prizes made a move to resist.

“Captain Allair, I have orders from Governor Nicholson, Vice Admiral of the Virginia Station,” Marlowe began.

“Vice Admiral, my arse! He’s got no authority over me, not to remove me from command!”

“Oh, but I say he does.”

“You do? And who are you, whore’s git? Black villain. You knew about that bastard’s silver, you tricked me.”

“Perhaps, but that’s behind us now. I shall ask you to remove yourself from my ship.” He held up the orders that Nicholson had written out.

“Sod off.”

He did not take his eyes from Allair, but he could hear more militia coming aboard and fanning out behind him, and beyond Allair he could see the uncertain looks on the faces of the Plymouth Prize’s men. As unimposing as the militia may have looked on Marlowe’s lawn, they were commanding quite a bit of respect now, among men even less disciplined and less anxious to fight. It seemed as if Allair was the only one interested in defending the Plymouth Prize.

“I should prefer it if you were to leave now,” Marlowe said, as reasonably as he was able. “You may take your gig and your gig crew. Anything of yours that will not go in the gig I shall be pleased to send along forthwith.”

“Oh, you’re a cool one, you bastard,” Allair spit, “but you’ll not use me like you done that Wilkenson git. Come, Monsieur Privateer, see what you can effect against a king’s officer!” Allair drew his sword with some difficulty and took a drunken step toward Marlowe.

Marlowe looked at Bickerstaff, and Bickerstaff gave him a raised eyebrow. This was ridiculous. Allair could never best him with a sword, even if he was stone sober.

“Draw your sword, you coward!” Allair roared, gaining courage from Marlowe’s sideways glance at Bickerstaff.

So Marlowe drew his sword. He wielded the weapon with great authority, so accustomed was he to its heft and size, and though the past two years of leisure had somewhat weakened his strength of arm, it was not so much that any but Marlowe himself would notice.

That fact, and the size of the straight blade, did not escape Allair’s drunken gaze. He faltered a bit in his advance, scowled, then summoned up all of the courage that the copious rum in his stomach afforded him and came at Marlowe again.

“I’m for you, God damn you!” he shouted, and charged, slashing down with his blade. Marlowe met the attack with the flat of his own sword, stopping Allair’s blade as if he had struck a rock and knocking it aside.

Allair was full open, his chest quite exposed and wanting only a quick thrust to end it all, but Marlowe could not. He took a step back. Allair lifted his sword again and slashed away, and Marlowe again turned the attack aside. They went on like that down the deck, one step at a time, attack and parry, attack and parry, with Allair’s breath coming faster and his sword coming slower with each advance.

Marlowe heard a firelock cock and heard Bickerstaff say, “No, no.” The militia parted as they moved down the deck, the Plymouth Prizes and the soldiers watching the drama as if it were staged for their amusement. But Marlowe did not want them to interfere. As long as the fight was just between Allair and him, no one would get hurt.

At last his heel touched on the base of the fife rail around the foremast and he knew he could go no farther back. Allair managed something like a smile, apparently thinking that he had his enemy on the run and now he was trapped.

He brought his sword down, and Marlowe turned it aside once more. Then Marlowe held his own blade down, point on the deck, his head fully exposed. Allair drew his sword back like an ax and slashed down, intending to cleave Marlowe’s head in two.

He would have, too, had he connected, for he put all the strength he had left into that last final blow. But Marlowe stepped aside at the very second that Allair was committed to the blow. The blade came down on an oak belaying pin and split that, rather than Marlowe’s skull, and there it stayed.

Allair struggled and cursed and tried to wrench the sword free from the pin, but it would not budge. He looked desperately over at Marlowe, waiting to be finished off, but Marlowe

only stared back, waiting for Allair to free his sword or collapse in fear and exhaustion.

“Very well, Marlowe,” he panted, falling against the fife rail. “Kill me.”

“Never in life, sir, a king’s officer. I ask only that you obey Governor Nicholson’s legal orders and turn the Plymouth Prize over to my command.”

Allair glared at him for a second more, then shuffled aft, leaving his sword wedged in the belaying pin. The militiamen stared at him, as did the men of the Plymouth Prize.

Another tale of my great daring, Marlowe thought, to be carried back to Williamsburg. A tale of how Marlowe spared the life of the man who tried to kill him. Such the gentleman, they will say, such a man of noble birth.

Only he and Bickerstaff and Allair understood that killing the man would have been the more merciful act.

“Now, men,” Marlowe addressed the crew of the Plymouth Prize, “I beg of you, lay down your weapons.”

Fifty muskets fell clattering to the deck.

An hour later the captain’s gig disappeared around a bend in the river, heading upstream to Jamestown. Along with Captain Allair went his great beast of a wife, who had happily decided to remain in the cabin during the confrontation. Had she been on deck, Marlowe would have actually been frightened.

As it was, her presence in the gig left little room for the Allairs’ personal belongings, which Marlowe assured them he would send back with the militia the next day. With the former captain properly disposed of, he took his place on the quarterdeck and summoned the crew aft.

“Good afternoon, men,” he said in as cheerful a tone as he could manage. “I am sorry for the little altercation that I had with your former captain, but I have no doubt it gave you some pleasant diversion.”

There were a few smiles at this, weak smiles. No one laughed. “My name is Captain Thomas Marlowe, and I have here orders from Governor Nicholson instructing me to take

command of the Plymouth Prize.” He quickly read through the orders, added some banal thing about attending to duty, and then dismissed them.

“Pray, sir,” one of the men spoke up, “but what shall we be doing now?”

Marlowe smiled. “We’ll be doing what the Plymouth Prize was sent here to do,” he said. “We shall be going forth and hunting down those roguish pirates.”

Chapter 8