running before the gale, deep-reefed topsails. Just getting ready to take ’em in, scud before it. We was pooped. Sea washed all the officers right off the quarterdeck, knocked the helm clean away.”
Marlowe nodded. One seaman talking to another, there was nothing more that needed to be said. The ship running before the sea, a huge wave sweeping up over the stern, crashing down on the quarterdeck, “pooping” her. All the officers there washed away, killed by the sea’s impact or swept overboard, the helm torn from its mounts.
With no way to steer, the ship would have rounded right up into the wind, the sails aback, and the storm would have ripped the masts out of her like saplings, left them a helpless wreck, rolling broadside to the waves. It probably took all of two minutes for her to go from being a well-found ship, running easily before the gale, to a foundering wreck with half her complement dead.
“Yes, well…” Marlowe said, and then he moved on to brighter topics. “I will give you all the choice of being set ashore at our next landfall or joining our company.”
“Aye, sir, and pray whither are you bound, sir?”
“Madagascar.”
A smile spread slowly across the boatswain’s leathery face. “Oh, aye, sir?”
Ten minutes later there were thirteen new names scrawled on the ship’s articles.
For five weeks they plowed their course south by west, five hundred miles or so off the West African coast, bound toward the equator, enduring the usual calms and squalls and rainstorms and fine weather. They made good time, having now a decent-size crew-near forty men-small by man-of-war standards but big for a merchantman, men who were quick and able at sail handling, so that Marlowe could make the most out of any slant of wind the Atlantic offered him.
The ship fell quickly into that steady, happy rhythm that marks a well-run ship, long at sea. Watch after watch, breakfast, dinner, supper, up spirits, lights out, the days and weeks cycled by in their floating world, and only now and again would someone look over the rail and realize that there was nothing but water surrounding them, that they had seen nothing but water beyond the confines of the ship for week upon week.
Floating under the hot sun, the wind entirely absent, they celebrated Christmas at six degrees north latitude, then in quick succession came the celebration of crossing the line and then New Year’s. But the changing of the year did nothing to change their situation, and once the rum with which they celebrated the holidays had worked through their systems, once pounding heads had returned to normal, the well-established routine took up again.
Dinwiddie still made veiled complaints about Honeyman, muttered dissatisfaction at playing second to a quartermaster. Honeyman said little, made no demands, never indicated that the crew had any concerns or desire to make any changes.
It was an odd stasis. The Elizabeth Galley was running like any merchantman or man-of-war, with the standard hierarchy. But underlying that-for Marlowe at least and certainly for Dinwiddie and Honey-man, no doubt-was the understanding that she was not such a legitimate vessel, that they were run by articles, that with one vote the men could change it all. A happy ship, but for those aft, an uneasy contentment.
They came at last to the low latitudes, where the sun passed directly overhead and beat down on the deck and softened the pitch and the tar on the rigging. The wind grew fluky and then light and then nonexistent. With the ship rolling in the swells, not moving, with no reason to trim sail, the men were suddenly without much to do. That was never a good thing.
Marlowe would have liked to drill with the great guns, a productive use of idle hours, but of course there were no great guns. And while it was standard practice with a raw crew to pantomime the handling of powder and shot, so as not to expend those precious commodities in the early stages of training, Marlowe reckoned that pantomiming the guns themselves was a bit much.
Instead he set the men to making mock cutlasses out of wood with leather hand guards and asked Bickerstaff to train them in swordplay, which was certainly as useful and almost as entertaining, lacking only the great noise and concussion of the guns to render it entirely delightful to the seamen.
The men stood in lines in the waist, a great open space with the guns gone, and followed Bickerstaff through the various positions- lunge, recover, parry, lunge-until they were sweating completely. He drilled them until they began to stumble with fatigue, then sent them off and took the next batch, and so on.
The first dog watch rolled around, and Marlowe reckoned the men had had enough for that day, that they had earned a little amusement.
“Here, Francis,” he called down to the waist, stripping his waistcoat as he did. He was dressed in a loose cotton shirt and slop trousers, barefooted-comfortable dress for the doldrums. “We have not crossed swords in many a year. What say we have a go, you and me?”
Bickerstaff looked up, smiled. “Delighted.”
Marlowe stepped down into the waist, carrying a matching set of rapiers. They were thin-bladed weapons, swords made for speed. Not the weapons Marlowe would choose for real combat, but they were good for fencing and for developing speed and coordination. A cork was pushed snugly down on the wicked tip of each blade.
The men gathered around, leaving a clear patch along the starboard side. They were grinning in anticipation, as Marlowe suspected they might.
Marlowe stretched out, took a few practice lunges, thought of the several purposes this would serve. Entertainment for the men, practice for him and Bickerstaff. And it would demonstrate to all hands that he was the deadliest man aboard, an important lesson.
“En garde,” Bickerstaff said, assuming his formal stance. Marlowe was much more casual about the whole thing, standing in a relaxed attitude, weapon held down. He knew that Bickerstaff would try to make him pay for his lack of formality by sticking him quick, and he was right.
Bickerstaff moved like a snake-one, two, three quick steps, rapier lunging out-but Marlowe was ready for it. He caught the blade on his own, pushed it aside, lunged, but Bickerstaff was already gone. The move drew a smattering of applause. He heard wagers being placed.
Marlowe took a more formal defensive stance now, feet at right angles, the tip of the rapier level with Bickerstaff’s face. A false lunge, Bickerstaff parried, a real lunge before he recovered, but Bickerstaff knocked the attack aside once more, to Marlowe’s surprise.
Now Bickerstaff was on the attack, blade flashing, and Marlowe could depend only on his reflexes to fend off the rapier. He was aware of the silence now along the deck, the men watching in awe as the weapons moved faster than their eyes could follow, only the clash of steel telling them that they were witnessing attacks, parries, ripostes.
And creeping age as well, though Marlowe hoped that only he was aware of it. Three, four times already he had seen opportunities that the younger, less weary Marlowe would have exploited to fatal advantage, but he was not fast enough now.
The same was true of Bickerstaff. One solid parry, Marlowe found himself opened, actually braced for the hard jab of cork on his chest, but Francis was not there, and by the time he was, Marlowe was ready to knock his blade aside.
So it went, back and forth along the deck, in front of a silent, watching crew. Marlowe could feel his arm grow heavy, his breath come faster.
And then Bickerstaff lunged, an awkward move-Marlowe could see he was tiring, too-and Marlowe’s blade came across, sideways, caught Francis’s sword in the hand guard. He twisted, wrenched the rapier from Francis’s hand, and reflexively thrust, hitting Bickerstaff in the chest just as Bickerstaff’s rapier clattered on the deck, Marlowe’s weapon bending under the impact.
Bickerstaff straightened, smiled. “Touche,” he gasped.
Marlowe stepped back, saluted with his sword. Turned to his men, ready to face whatever he might see: scorn, amusement at seeing that old man humping it up and down the deck.
But what he saw in its stead was astonishment. Mouths hung open, eyes wide. No one moved, and Marlowe reckoned they had managed to put on a decent show after all.
Good, and do not forget it, he thought as the men, led by Honey-man, burst out into applause, wild cheers, demands for losers to pay their bets. It was great theater.
Then Elizabeth stepped across the deck, picked up Bickerstaff ’s rapier. “Come, Captain, let me have a go at you!” she called, taking an en garde stance. The crew cheered again, in their high spirits.
