The Guardship

A SHIP is a vegetable affair. Every part of it, save for those little bits of metalwork, was once a plant of some description. The frames and planks and decking, the hanging knees and clamps and wales, the very fabric of the vessel, all once were living oak, fir, longleaf yellow pine.

It is wood that holds the great mass together-pegs called tree nails, driven into holes bored through plank and frame and hammered home with great force. Then, between these wood planks, are pounded dried plant fibers in the form of oakum to render the hull watertight. And between the planks of the deck is poured the melted pitch of pine trees.

The masts rise from the deck like the great trees they once were. Their roots go down through weather deck, gun deck, and berthing deck to where they terminate in the dark hold, set into a notch in the keelson called a step.

But these roots are not so substantial that the mast can stand on its own, not with the tremendous pressure of sail it must carry. So the masts are set up with rigging: shrouds and stays, unwieldy lengths of cordage that are themselves woven from bits of dried plants and coated with tar distilled from the trunks of pine.

The shrouds come down to deadeyes, nicely worked, round pieces of wood pierced with three holes through which are rove smaller lines called lanyards. The lanyards in turn are held fast by thin and insubstantial lines called marlin, bound up in an elaborate knot called a seizings. Thus the whole machine, from the great bulk of the mainmast to the tiny seizings on the spritsail topmast shrouds, all work in consort to move this thing called a ship to wherever its masters deem it should go.

And every bit of it, from keel to truck, started its life as a living plant. And like all things that were once alive, it is all prone to rot.

And such was the state of the Plymouth Prize.

One look at the anchor cable and Marlowe knew the reason for this condition. From the point where it left the hawse hole to where it plunged into the river, that six-inch-thick rope was as dry and white as a bone, so long had it been exposed to the sun.

Just below the water’s surface a great mass of weed and scum held fast to the cable and streamed away in the current. The anchor had not been off the bottom, and the ship had not moved in quite some time. When a ship does not move, and her people do not look after her, she begins her quick return to a state of nature.

Had Marlowe understood the true condition of the Plymouth Prize, he might not have been so active in securing her command for himself. As it was, no sooner had Captain Allair disappeared upriver than the carpenter, who, like most of the men, was quick to accept the change of command, came to him and said, “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but might we have some men for the pumps?”

“Certainly,” said Marlowe. “How much water is there in the well?”

“Three feet, sir, and rising.”

“Three feet? When was she last pumped?”

“This morning watch, sir. Pumped dry.”

Marlowe’s mouth hung open at this news, despite himself. She had been pumped dry that morning, and already there

was three feet of water in the hold, and this while riding at anchor with no strain to speak of on her hull. In a seaway she would leak much worse, and in a gale she would not last an hour. But this was not the worst of it.

The mainmast had a great nasty section of black wood where the rot was eating away at it. The standing rigging was slack and in desperate need of fresh tar. A fine white powder fell from whatever piece of the running gear Marlowe took up and twisted open, a sure sign that the rope was rotten and would not bear any strain.

After sending half the men to the pumps, Marlowe sent the other half aloft to shake out the sails, it being his intention to let the canvas dry to a bowline. They climbed with great care, taking each step slowly, lest the rope on which they stood break and they fall to deck.

On the fore topsail yard he saw a man put his foot clean through the rotten fabric of the sail.

Another man, loosening off the main topsail, was halfway out the yard when the footrope on which he stood gave out under him and he fell screaming from that great height. All about the ship men froze, aghast, as the unhappy soul bounced off the main top, hit the main yard with a thump that sent him spinning, and plunged into the river. But despite all that, they fished him out, fully alive but shaken, and after a few cups of rum he was quite set up again.

It was a prodigious amount of work that the Plymouth Prize needed to put her in fighting trim, if, indeed, she could ever again hope to achieve that exalted state. And Marlowe understood that if she could not, then he, Bickerstaff, and all of the Prizes might well be dead within the week.

This much and more Marlowe discussed with Bickerstaff as they trudged across the western beach of Smith Island toward the low grassy hills and clusters of trees in the middle of that place.

It was late afternoon, the day after he had taken command of the Plymouth Prize. The guardship was still where they had

found her, being readied for sea by First Lieutenant William Rakestraw, whom Marlowe hoped, after a lengthy interview, was at heart an able officer, grown dull under Allair’s lethargy.

Behind them, riding at anchor in the shallow bay, was the sloop Northumberland. Marlowe had left her small crew aboard, had taken only Bickerstaff and King James with him. No one else needed to know what they were about. He trusted no one else to walk with him into the lion’s den.

“Admit it, Tom, she’s worse off than you had imagined,” said Bickerstaff. “Even I can see that. She needs prodigious work. And not a sort of tidying up, either, blacking down the rig and sweeping up the decks and that sort of thing. No, she needs careening, she needs a new mainmast, she needs new running gear rove off, a new suit of sails.”

“Honestly, Francis, how you go on. You would think the ship is sinking under our feet.”

“She is not now. Now we are on dry land. Yesterday she was, and when we are aboard her she shall be again.”

“Very well, she is sinking. But we cannot, you see, go to the governor complaining about the need for repair. That was Allair’s excuse, and I reckon the governor has had a belly full of it. No, I fain would accomplish something before we suggest heaving her down. And if we meet with success in our current venture we shall earn our own keep, and then some.”

“That is another matter.” Bickerstaff stopped, forced Marlowe to meet his eye. “This seems a very selfless thing you are doing, taking command of the guardship. Now, you have your qualities, to be sure, but selflessness is not high among them.”

Marlowe held his gaze, that wonderful gaze. There was nothing condescending, nothing judgmental in his look. Had there been, Marlowe would have run him through long ago, or died trying. He looked as he always did, as if he wanted only for Marlowe to be true to himself.

But that, of course, was irritating in its own right.

“Francis,” he said, “you alone understand the circumstances that led me…us…here. What better way for us

to take our place in society than to save society from these evil pirates?”

“Save them? What you have in mind-what I believe you have in mind-smacks of the sweet trade itself.”

At this Marlowe grinned. “Well, now, you must know that old saying ‘set a thief to catch a thief’?”

“I do. But you are a gentleman, Tom. You are not a thief, and you are not a pirate.”

“You can’t expect me to ask these villains to leave of their own accord. And you can’t expect those lazy sods on the Plymouth Prize to fight like they mean it without they have some compensation for their troubles.”

Bickerstaff looked at him for a moment more. “You are very near the edge, my friend.” He turned and resumed walking.

They pressed on, side by side. King James scouted ahead, moving with animal stealth, recalling those lessons he learned as a boy in his native Africa. Now and again he would show himself, give the two men a sign that all was clear.

Smith Island was an odd-shaped spot of land about five miles long and, where they were crossing, thankfully less than a mile wide. It was actually in the Atlantic Ocean, less than half a mile east of Cape Charles, just north of the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, part of the string of barrier islands that stood like a rampart along the coast.