But what they did not understand, as Marlowe did, was that it was the perfect touch for their disguise. Nowhere outside that rude democracy of the pirate world would one find a black man on such an equal footing with whites.
Lieutenant Rakestraw, dressed much like his men and looking in no way like a British naval officer, took command of the second boat, and with a word the oars came down and the boat crews pulled for shore.
In the moonlight Marlowe could see the faces of the men at the oars. They were tight lipped and grim, and their skin appeared pale and waxy. Beads of sweat stood out on foreheads, more so than was warranted by the temperature or the exertion.
They were a very frightened bunch. Marlowe caught a whiff of something that suggested someone had not been able to hold his bowels, but that smell could well have come from another source. At least their backs were to the beach, and the waiting pirates would not see the terror in their faces, only the calm visages of himself and King James.
They closed with the beach, one hundred yards, fifty yards.
He could see the pirates massed there, waiting for their arrival. There were over a hundred of them, and not above forty Prizes. That would also help the pirates feel secure, though it did nothing for Marlowe. He thought of what he would say, how he would hold their attention while his men formed up.
He could smell the fire now, and the roasted pig and the rum and the discharged powder, all those familiar smells of a pirate encampment. The boats ground up on the sand, and the men of the
“Get out and pull us up on the beach,” he growled, and reluctantly the men left the familiar boat and stepped ashore at the feet of their enemy.
Marlowe stood and swaggered forward to the bow of the boat and hopped down onto the sand with King James a few feet behind.
“Who the fuck are you, then?” asked one of the crowd. They were twenty feet away, pushing forward to get a look at the newcomers, and they looked every inch the pirate mob. Most wore no shoes or stockings. Some wore breeches, but most wore the baggy trousers favored by sailors the world over. At least half of them wore sashes around their waists, red, generally, into which were thrust pistols and cutlasses. Others wore pistols hung around their neck on slings of bright-colored ribbon.
Some had long coats and cocked hats, much like Marlowe’s, and others had bright-colored rags tied about their heads. All wore beards of some description, and their hair was long and generally unkept. The smell of rum could not have been stronger had there been a distillery right on the beach. They were a murderous, ugly bunch.
“My name is Sam Blaine,” Marlowe announced, “which ain’t of no importance. But hear me. The guardship here has a new captain, and he ain’t afraid to fight. You seen my mainmast go by the board? I was in a scrape with him yesterday, fought it out for three hours before I could draw off, the bastard. He done for my mast. Goddamned miracle it stood this
long. And he’s bound for this place, to the devil with his black soul.”
This news gave some pause to the crowd of brigands, enough that Marlowe could glance over his shoulder at his own men. The second boat had pulled up. Rakestraw hopped ashore and stepped cross the sand to Marlowe’s side. All but a few of the Prizes were now on the beach, and most were reaching for their muskets. That would not go unnoticed.
He looked back at the pirates. There was not a man among them who was not armed. Cutlasses were much in evidence, though only a few were drawn, and pistols as well, though with any luck none were loaded.
“Here, what’s the meaning with all them firelocks?” another of the pirates asked. Marlowe heard a murmur running through the gang, and a few more cutlasses were drawn. He heard the lock of a pistol snap into place.
A minute more, he needed but a minute more for his men to be in place and then he could demand their surrender. “Listen to me,” he said, “I just finished telling ye-”
Then one of the Plymouth Prizes broke, succumbed to his terror, unable to endure the tension of standing face- to-face with this fearsome enemy. He screamed “Bloody whoreson bastards!” and a gun went off like a cannon right in Marlowe’s ear. He felt the rush of air, heard the frightful whine as the ball passed by and struck the pirate just in front of him in the throat, tossing him back into the sand.
“God damn it!” He whirled around and shoved James down in the sand, no easy task, and fell on top of him as his panic-crazed men raised their muskets and blasted the pirates with a wall of lead. He felt bits of flaming wadding land on his hands and face and burn like stinging insects, heard men scream in terror and agony. The Prizes could not miss; they were firing from fifteen feet away into a solid crowd of men.
Marlowe scampered over James and crawled on hands and knees out of the way. He could hear more screams and curses, and gunfire being returned.
At last he leapt to his feet, Rakestraw beside him and James scrambling behind. Fifteen or so pirates lay thrashing on the sand and the other eighty were shouting, drawing weapons, charging at his men.
His men, in turn, had thrown their muskets away, as they had been instructed, but rather than drawing their pistols and firing again-the second part of Marlowe’s plan-they turned their backs and rushed into the surf, ignoring even the boats in their panicked flight.
Marlowe pulled his sword with his right hand and a pistol with his left and shot down the pirate leading the rush on the Prizes, then charged into the surf after his own fleeing crew.
“Your pistols! Your pistols! Turn and fire!” he shouted. He reached the man leading the retreat, up to his knees in the water and running hard with high, exaggerated steps. Where he thought he was going Marlowe could not imagine. He smacked the man hard with the flat of his sword.
One pirate fired, then another and another, and the Prizes began to fall. “Turn and fire!” he shouted again, and this time he was joined by Rakestraw, who had also hurled himself into the mass of fleeing men. It was Marlowe’s plan to kill as many of the villains as they could with musket and pistol. He never had a hope of his men standing up to the pirates in swordplay, fighting hand to hand.
They were all in the surf now, and the pirates were on top of the rearmost of Marlowe’s men and hacking them to pieces. He could smell the blood, like warm copper. That smell and the screams of men dying badly were all ghosts from a past he thought he had left behind.
He pulled another of his pistols, fired it into the face of one of the pirates, threw it aside, and pulled another. Rakestraw and King James had disposed of all their pistols and left five dead men at their feet, and now they were standing in front of the onrushing pirates, cutting them down as they came.
Marlowe fired his last pistol and missed, and the man beside him pulled his gun and fired as well, then one after another of the Prizes turned and fired and the onrush of pirates faltered. Marlowe saw pistols whip through the air as they were
thrown at the attackers and men reached for their second guns. The spirit of resistance seemed to sweep over his men as fast as had the panic, and now they stood fast in the surf and fired.
Holes appeared in the rush of attackers as the brigands died where they stood. One took a step back, then another, and soon they were all backing away from the Prizes, but they did not break and run, and Marlowe knew they would not. These men were no strangers to this kind of fight and this kind of carnage. There was no grief for lost comrades, and each of them knew that surrender meant hanging.
“At them, men!” he shouted, waving his sword over his head, and thirty cutlasses were drawn and the Plymouth Prizes screamed and charged.
They did not get far. The pirates might not stand up to gunfire with no weapons of their own loaded, but now the Prizes’ guns were spent and it was steel on steel, and in that contest the pirates would not be bested. The rogue horde screamed as well and fell on the man-of-war’s men as the two bands came together in a crash of blades.
Marlowe charged through the press of Plymouth Prizes. Before him was a monster of a brigand, as big as a bear, a long black beard, matted hair, blood smeared on his face. And between them was one of Marlowe’s own men, trying to fend off the pirate’s flashing blade.
Marlowe put a hand on his man’s shoulder, tried to push him aside, when the pirate’s sword erupted through his back, skewering the man and pushing through so far as to prick Marlowe in the chest. Marlowe met the pirate’s eyes and the villain smiled at him, actually smiled, while Marlowe’s man shrieked and puked blood, squirming on the sword.
Marlowe smiled as well and drew his sword back. The pirate screamed a curse and struggled to free his
