The Guardship

manifestations. It was absurd to think that Marlowe could rise above it, because he, too, was a man. He could not change that.

She spun around and marched out of the great cabin. If Marlowe was going to be an ass in that uniquely masculine way, then there was nothing she or anyone else could do.

There were about eighty men aboard the new Vengeance, dirty, bearded men in long coats, torn and filthy shirts, slop trousers, and old breeches. They wore pistols draped around their necks with fancy bits of ribbon. Some had feathers or more ribbon fastened to their cocked hats, or bright cloth bound around their heads.

They carried cutlasses and swords and axes and daggers, each man according to his preference. They stood in the waist or the quarterdeck or in the rigging or perched on the great guns. They all were watching their master, Capitain Jean-Pierre LeRois.

And LeRois was scanning the countryside around the ship, the green fields and the brown river and the blue, blue sky. The whiteness was gone, the blinding white that had seared everything away, and in its place was the world, the earth, all bright and vivid, new, like the first day of creation.

“Rum?” One of the men standing beside him offered him a bottle. LeRois looked at the bottle and then at the man, and then all the men standing there watching him. He had forgotten about them.

“No,” he said to the man with the proffered bottle. He did not want rum. Rum just dulled everything. He was finally seeing things clearly, more clearly than he had ever seen them. He did not want the sharpness dulled.

He could no longer feel the bugs under his clothes. The screaming was gone as well, and in its place were the voices, and the voices told him it was time to move.

His eyes locked on a big white house at the far end of the field that ran along the north shore. “We go ashore now!” he

shouted to the men. “La maison, we take that. We take them all, oui? ”

Heads turned toward the shore. Whatever he had said seemed to agree with the men. A low murmur ran across the deck and built and built into a chorus of shouting and chanting and vaporing as the men rigged up the stay tackle and yard tackle and swayed the boats out over the side.

LeRois did not know how long it took, minutes, perhaps, or hours, but finally the boats were in the water and the Vengeances were pouring over the rails and down onto the thwarts, filling each boat, then pushing off and making room for the next.

At last there was only LeRois, and he clambered down the cleats and took his place in the stern sheets of the launch. The other boats moved deferentially aside while the launch went first to the far shore.

The boat nudged into the bank and the men leapt out into water up to their knees and pulled it farther ashore, then LeRois made his way to the bow and hopped out.

He headed out across the dark brown field. There were row upon row of small dirt hills with plants bursting from the top like little green volcanoes. There were people in the field as well, blacks, starting to move back from the advancing pirates. Some were turning and running. From a cluster of small buildings, the slave quarters, LeRois imagined, more Negroes were fleeing toward the big house.

“Slaves,” he said out loud. “They are all slaves.”

From the corner of his eye he could see his men spread out in a line behind him as they advanced. People appeared on the porch, white people. One of them had a gun. To defend the place. LeRois could not imagine why. He was an irresistible force. They could do no more than run.

And that was what most of them did, white and black. Fled down the far road in the face of the pirates, clutching a few pathetic possessions.

Let them run. LeRois imagined himself and his men as a great wave, pushing all ahead of it, destroying all in its path

until at last those people trying to stay ahead would be trapped and dashed to pieces. There was only so far they could run.

The pirates picked up the pace, stepping faster, then jogging toward that huge house, that repository of comforts and riches. The front door was left open, as if welcoming them in. They swarmed up the small hill on which the house stood and poured across the porch.

A window was smashed and a musket was thrust out-some hero remaining behind to protect his home-and the musket fired into the crowd. A man screamed and dropped, but the pirates did not hesitate in the least, as if they were not even aware of the gunfire.

One of them grabbed up a chair and flung it through a window, leering at the satisfying sound of smashing glass and shattering wood. More chairs were taken up, more windows were broken in.

LeRois caught a glimpse of the hero who had fired the single shot. He was struggling to pull a pistol free from his belt when the horde fell upon him and dragged him through the window and onto the porch, pulling him over the jagged glass he himself had broken. He screamed and disappeared beneath a mass of brigands. There was a brief thrashing, and then he was dead.

The pirates went in through the door and the windows. They tore through the house, wild with the opportunity to loot and destroy. They pulled down curtains and overturned tables, smashed whatever they could smash, just for the sheer delight of it. A bag was located and stuffed with anything that might be of value, and when that one was full another was started.

The family had apparently been at dinner when the Vengeances had interrupted them, for the big dining-room table was spread with turkey and fritters and tripe and asparagus. The pirates swarmed around, grabbing handfuls of whatever struck their fancy and stuffing it into their mouths, smashing the plates on the floor as they emptied them.

They burst into the kitchen. Cooking utensils lay scattered where they had been discarded by the cook as she raced from the house. They ripped through the pantry and the cupboards and feasted on whatever they could find, the freshest food they had had in over two months.

They pulled paintings off the walls and slashed them with their swords and urinated on the faces of the family’s ancestors. They raced up the wide stairs and tore the bedrooms apart, hacking the mattresses until blizzards of feathers filled the rooms. They found all of the alcohol in the house. It was mostly wine, which was a disappointment, but there was enough of it at least that each man had two or more bottles to himself.

It was the greatest frolic they had ever had, and the pirates went about their business with a thoroughness and enthusiasm that was rarely seen in men on the account. One by one the rooms were torn apart. Furniture was smashed into cord wood, walls were hacked up, any badge of wealth or privilege was desecrated. Great piles of wreckage filled the place. The screaming and shouting and merriment did not abate for a second.

LeRois walked slowly from room to room, watching his men have their fun. That was fine. There was no harm done. He enjoyed seeing his men so happy.

He had no idea how long they had spent in the house. There was an elegant clock on the mantel in the sitting room, covered with cherubs and birds and such, that seemed to ring and ring until finally LeRois could take it no more and shot it to pieces. They had been there for some time, he decided. Long enough. It was time to go.

“Allez, allez, we go, we go!” he shouted, walking through the house and screaming at the men and after some time of this finally getting their attention. “Burn this son of bitch, we go now!” he ordered.

The men glanced at one another. The fools did not want to leave. They wanted to stay here, on this one little spot of land, when there was an entire continent lying at their feet.

“I said, burn this son of bitch! We must go down the road, go to the next house! They are waiting for us there!”

This seemed to motivate the men. A curtain was torn down and gunpowder spilled on it and then ignited with a flintlock. Soon the cloth was blazing and the pirates piled paintings, broken furniture, and books onto the fire. In just a few minutes the entire sitting room was engulfed. The ceiling above began to cave in and the fire found the second floor.

The Vengeances shouted and hooted and swilled from their bottles of wine. They understood now that the destruction had just begun.