And now, submitted for your reading pleasure, I present to you the very first chapter of my forthcoming novel: The Last Voyage of the Brigadier Schwepp, due to be published in September 2011. Enjoy!
The Last Voyage of the Brigadier Schwepp
Chapter 1
This is the story of how I went to sea, with the express intent of finding one, two or perhaps many women of ill-repute with whom to sow my wild oats before resuming my rather rigid and formal education. This at the behest of my mother, who herself became a woman of ill-repute the moment she conceived me with the help of an itinerate seaman from the British isles.
Despite his impregnating and almost instantaneously abandoning her, my mother was quite enamored of the fellow, and in fact gave me his name, Thom. His last name happened to be Morrow, giving him a moniker which I many years later found out was sort of a crude joke among sailors, often involving euphemistic phrases like ‘upon Thom Morrow’ to describe, with no great subtlety, their carnal exploits. When my mother learned of this she was quick to alter my birth record, and replaced my last name with one of her own choosing; a word that, in her mind, best embodied the spirit of strength and independence, which at the time happened to be ‘Madagascar.’
Even so named, I made my way quite unobtrusively through the finest elementary and preparatory schools in The Americas—or rather, the United States, as they would come to be known early in my lifetime. This was largely due to the fact that the war seemed to distract any would-be bullies from my questionable origins. Despite my mother’s reputation as a harlot—which, she assured me, was patently false save the one incident I was the product of—she was taken in by her brother, my uncle, and we were treated to a fine life on his estate in the far vicinity of the quite remarkable port of New York City.
We wanted for very little, even in such times of upheaval and revolution as saw me through my formative years. I was born in what would most likely become a year of great import in history, when several Colonies of the Americas declared themselves independent from Great Britain. By the time I was 8, the treaty of Paris had been signed and the British had permanently ceded their center of power in New York. Before I became a teenager, a new nation had been formed, and I was, whether or not I wanted to be, a citizen thereof.
Without a war on, and as I entered the years between growing and grown, the townspeople turned their ire once again toward my mother and me, finding, I suppose, nothing so suitable in their own life as despising me for the illegitimacy of mine. Though the nation we lived in was young and full of promise, I began to despise it as being no different than any other, and all for the children it had produced, sniveling and wretched and downright mean.
“There are always going to be those who hate you simply because of who you happen to be,” said my mother once, to a much younger me. “When they point at you and call you those names, just you remember that they are the blood descendents of all the thieves and rapists in England, people deemed unfit for civilization.”
I nodded as she wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes.
“You come from a family of fine standing, one that is well-bred and distinguished, both here and in Great Britain. Always know that.”
I nodded again and said that I did, but I also knew that what she was telling me was only half of the truth. The other half lay over the unfathomable reaches of the sea, in the heart and mind of a sailor I’d never meet, but half of whom I would always be, despite how refined an upbringing my mother endeavored to give me. That’s why, at the age of nineteen, I packed what few belongings I could carry in a rucksack and boarded a coach for New York City.
“You’ve got to discover what this world is all about, if you want to succeed in it,” my mother said, trying to impart upon me some last modicum of wisdom that she herself hadn’t utilized in her own life. “Find out why it is that governments are toppled, yet people still yearn to be governed. Find out what it means to be ‘free,’ for I suppose we’ve never really known, eh? And for Christ’s sake, find yourself a girl! Find two! Find two dozen!”
Though I were a man by most standards, I’d spent my life having never known or courted a girl, and having barely even kissed one. Mother always liked to torment me for this, for she said it made my ‘pale, English complexion’ more American-looking when I invariably blushed. She thought it incredibly ironic that she, a woman of looser virtues in her youth, could bear a son who embarrassed so easily and who shied away from most females as if avoiding typhoid. I would remember fondly the gleam in her eyes as she bid me farewell, like a “wild Irish rose” I’d heard immortalized in song time and again, and I wanted for nothing more than to make my mother proud.
And so I set off to one of the continent’s seediest port-cities in search of strumpets and whores. The journey to New York took only a matter of days and was, on the whole, unworthy of record. I arrived in the bustling port town late in the afternoon, hoping to find a meal and a bed for the night in order to collect myself and become a man about town at daybreak. After asking a few of the local citizens to direct me to a suitable establishment, I found myself sitting alone in the corner of some dreary little tavern along Hudson’s River.
From my vantage near the front window, I could see even in the failing light of day all of the impressive ships in the Continental Navy’s fleet. I had briefly studied seamanship in school, and knew enough of a ship’s relative size and style of rigging to differentiate a frigate from a brig, a schooner from a sloop and so forth, but I dared not inquire about those I didn’t recognize. In fact, I dared not say much of anything, let alone look at much of anyone, for what I’d heard of seagoing folk was all bad; that they’d just as soon kill you as look at you and that they should be simply avoided by civilized people.
Of course I had thought it was all rot, and so I made my way deep into the belly of the city with a smile and a tip of my hat, but presently, slowly pulling on my ale with my back to the rest of the tavern, the reality and fear of my situation began to set in. My uncle had advised me to make arrangements for my lodging ahead of time, but I in my infinite wisdom at nineteen had deemed that contrary to the spirit of adventure. How I wished I had listened to him!
The tavern slowly filled as the night progressed, and I came quickly to understand that the regimented lifestyle of a country estate—breakfast at seven thirty, luncheon at eleven thirty, tea at three and supper at six—was not adhered to in this bustling seaport, this hive of activity, like an immense bookshelf where the books are constantly being placed on or taken off, their contents rewritten and their characters shuffled from one to another. It must have been exhausting, living and working in such a place, where the scenery changed day by day, and the crowd must have been a different one every night.
I, myself, was feeling rather exhausted, and so with a bit more courage than before (after having finished my ale), I paid for the night’s victuals and retired to the quay for a stroll while in search of an inn. The ships floated lazily past one another, even in the sun’s final minutes, and where one left the dock, another was quick to take its place. The docks seemed to go on interminably, for as far as I could see in the city’s glow there were ships and crane hoists and men working even at such an undesirable hour.
As night fell, the volume of ships seemed to lessen. Those that were docked seemed, on the whole, to remain docked, and those that were under sail seemed to be departing the upper bay, either heading on up the Hudson or making for the lower bay and, eventually, the Atlantic Ocean. I ambled on into the evening, meaning, eventually, to turn inland a bit and find myself a room for the night, but a strange compulsion kept me heading steadily north along the river’s bank. The ships grew smaller and simpler in design and accoutrements as I made my way incrementally nearer to the Hudson’s source some three hundred miles away.
Long before the city halted, I noticed a chorus of men’s voices singing what seemed to be a cheerful shanty. I glanced in both directions along the river, sensing at last that the song seemed to be coming from a ship at dock some distance off. I stood in silence for a time, listening to the jolly singing; jollier by far than any I had ever encountered in my rural existence. Still possessing the ale’s unnatural strength, confidence and curiosity, I made my way onto the dock and toward the ship in question.
No one stood in attendance, so I carefully climbed the gangway and peered onto the deck. The scene that unfolded before me was strangest in nature, and were it not for my being noticed a short while later, I mightn’t ever have entirely understood what was going on.
There were, by my best reckoning, two separate groups of individuals onboard the ship—the ones whose voices I’d heard singing and who were presently dancing arm-in-arm around the deck, and another, much smaller group of only a half dozen or so, wearing dourer faces and skulking in the shadows near the bow.
The ones dancing and singing were strangely attired in raggedy clothes—torn, striped pants that had decades since been fashionable, tattered waistcoats of crimson and navy, and shirts that were soiled and stained with, presumably, blood and ale. Short cutlasses hung from thick baldrics buckled across their shoulders, and tucked into the belts of many were outmoded pistols of wood and brass.
“Could it be?” I said to myself. “Have I stumbled aboard an actual pirate ship? Here, in New York City of all places?”
Closer examination of the ‘pirates’ led to the discovery that they were not the sort of bronzed, hard-knock fellows I’d come to know them as through literature. These were rather rosy-cheeked and soft looking, and unless my eyes were playing tricks on me, many seemed to be wearing wigs and false beards and even lady’s makeup. Too fascinated by the singular oddity of this buccaneer crew, I stood and gaped for perhaps a moment or two longer than I should have, for when I turned to go, the man who I presumed to be the captain signaled for silence and raised up a cry of welcome in my direction.
“Ahoy zere!” he said in an effeminate accent which I struggled for a moment to place as German or Austrian. “Und who might zis handsome young fellow be?”
I indicated myself in question.
“Of course you, silly boy!” laughed the captain, and his mates laughed with him, a bit too boisterously, I thought. “Wie heisst du?”
“Pardon me?”
“Vhat is your name?”
“Oh. Um, sorry, I don’t speak German. My name is Thom.”
“Thom?” repeated the captain. “Vhat a lovely, if odd, little name! Ich heisse Franz Leitlöfer, kaptain von der güte schiff Mathilda.”
He was a tall, fattish man with a jolly belly and a pair of twinkling blue eyes, and though he might make for a menacing presence otherwise, at the moment he wore a wig of curly amber locks that fell past his shoulders, and his face had been powdered nearly white, except for the blush that had been applied quite liberally to his cheeks.
He indicated that I was to shake his hand, so I made the long, awkward climb down from the gangway and then hastened across the deck. He took my hand as a lady might, wrapping his cold, slender fingers over the top and waggling it back and forth a few times.
“Very pleased,” I said, attempting in vain to demonstrate the firmness with which I was taught to always shake hands, in order to assert confidence.
“I’m sure,” said captain Leitlöfer. “Vhat brings you aboard zis fine vessel, young Thom?”
“Um, actually I was just out for a stroll, when I heard your singing. I’ve only just arrived in the city today. In fact, I should probably get going. I need to find a bed for the night.”
The pirates began chuckling to themselves.
“Oh, young Thom! I sink vee can provide you a ‘bed’ for zee night,” laughed captain Leitlöfer. “Come, come. Vee vill show you a vunderbar time! Vaht do you do, Thom? Are you a doctor? A lawyer, perhaps?”
“No, neither,” I said.
“You are an actor, yes? Like mein companions tonight?”
“No, I’m not an actor,” I said. “I’m not anything, really. Well, not yet. You see, I’ve come to the city on… well, on holiday, I suppose. I wanted to take a break from my studies for the time being, to see a little of what the world has to offer.”
“Vell,” chuckled the captain, “You ‘ave come to zee right place for zhat!”
The pirate actors laughed gaily along with.
“So I’ve heard,” I managed to laugh in response. “My mother wanted me to find myself a girl, and I figured what better a place to do that than the port of New York! Well? Am I right? Is this not the best place in the Americas to find women of lax morals and loose virtues?”
I noticed quickly that I was the only one still acting jovial.
“A girl,” repeated captian Leitlöfer, frowning for the first time since I had met him. I scanned the faces of his companions, who all seemed to be equally nonplussed. “Yes, vell, I’m afraid for zhat sort of sing you vill ‘ave to talk to Mr. Varval und his mates.”
I turned toward the bow and then felt a pair of frail hands sweeping me thither.
“Mr. Varval?” I repeated over my shoulder.
“Not Varval!” snapped captain Leitlöfer. “You dare mock me on my own ship?”
“What? No, I wasn’t——
“Mr. Varval, show zis man der ropes, bitte.”
“Aye,” grumbled the foremost member of the group lounging in the ship’s bow. He was a man of modest height and build, looking a little more the picture of the seaman I had held in mind all my life. He was dark-complexioned but looked otherwise like an Englishman, and he had a thin mustache that ran the course of his lip and then joined up with a pair of chops at the sides of his head.
Though he was more the man in form, he and the other mates were made to wear rather ridiculous cabin-boy sort of get-ups, which, judging by their rougher nature, suggested why they each looked so dour. He greeted me with a smile, not, it seemed, because I was any sort of person he would normally want to have on his ship, but because I was neither made up nor dressed up, nor was I interested only in the company of other ‘actors.’
“Welcome aboard,” he said in an accent that was undeniably British-American. “Name’s Warwal. Tristan Warwal.”
“Thom Madagascar,” I said, and he shook my hand as I had intended to shake the Captain’s. “Delighted to meet you.”
He introduced me to the rest of the fellows, the six of whom made up the ship’s entire crew. I remarked (as though I knew anything about it) that six seemed like rather a scant few to pilot a three-master like the Mathilda, and I inquired into Tristan’s and the crew’s experience as sailors, and about their… shall we say, ‘eccentric’ captain.
“He ain’t my captain!” grumbled Tristan, suffocating a yell. “He ain’t none of ours.”
The other mates nodded their agreement.
“Whatever are you talking about?” I asked.
Tristan said not one word more, instead politely (if somewhat suspiciously) excusing us from the company of the captain and his companions, and leading us onto the dock and toward a rowdy tavern a few blocks into town.
“Where are we off to?” I said at last, glad that, even though I hadn’t found a place to lay my head, I had in the very least found a few people with whom to cavort for the time being.
“The Kelp and Scupper,” said Tristan, leading us down a narrow alleyway and eventually to a small street with a brightly lit tavern set into one side, but featureless otherwise. From the street I could already hear the ruckus within, the clinking of glasses and silverware, the bawdy, off-key singing accompanying a slightly out-of-tune piano, and the stomping feet and clapping hands of a raucous crowd dancing to the music.
I obliged to go with the crew into the tavern, though I’d about had my fill of ale, having never taken more than one glass in an evening. However, as soon as we were seated, I found myself with a full mug in hand, and to this day I haven’t the faintest idea how it got there. I recall a number of smiling ladies around us just then, and one in particular who held my gaze over her shoulder for an instant or two longer than any girl I’d ever talked to, before disappearing through a doorway.
I nursed the evening’s second pint very slowly, still finding I had a trifle of difficulty shaking the day’s uneasiness and simply allowing the night’s events to unfold as they saw fit. However, I discovered that any uptightness I may have been afflicted with was disappearing commensurately with the amount of ale I imbibed. When Tristan eventually rejoined our table and got around to asking what I was about in New York, I relayed in great detail the story of my upbringing and of my mother’s desire for me to find no fewer than two dozen girls with whom to slake the lust she was convinced my nineteen-year-old self must possess in abundance.
“That’s it?” cried Tristan. “That’s the grand purpose that’s brought you here? Lad, you don’t have to travel days and nights to find ‘women of ill-repute,’ as you call them. Is there no brothel in your town?”
“A brothel?” I cried, my own voice many times louder than it would have been had I stuck to my night’s usual ale limit. “Sir, I am not looking for prostitutes!”
“But… ain’t that what you just said?”
“My mother always told me that a gentleman never pays, and a lady never charges!”
I was prepared neither for the volume nor the vulgarity of the laughter that such an outburst would elicit, both from the sailors and the women who had slung themselves over their laps and draped themselves across their shoulders, whose bright scarlet dresses, heavily made up faces and frilly feather boas should have indicated that they were exactly the sort of ladies I was yelling about.
“Well, lad,” began Tristan at length, “New York is a working city. The men work, and believe you me, the women work, too!”
This last bit he said less to me and more to the curly-haired brunette who had entwined him with her lithe, serpentine body and was stroking his bristly chops with a bemused smile. They both laughed, and I couldn’t help but feel as though it were somehow at my expense.
“Another ale for lord Thom!” he cried. One of the shipmen was quick to oblige.
“I really shouldn’t,” I said, accepting the mug and taking a sip without a second thought.
“Of course you shouldn’t,” said Will, the blonde, bearded, weather-beaten mate who’d handed me the libation. “But you’re in New York, now!”
“Cheers!” was all I could think to say. I tipped my glass and then threw it back, and the mates laughed and clapped, yelling “Three cheers for lord Thom! Hip-hip! Hooray!”
“What’s all this ‘lord Thom’ nonsense about?” I asked them. No one seemed too handy with a response, though they all seemed to acknowledge the fact that I should (and would) be referred to thusly. We prattled on inanely for a while, and soon my head began fogging up, and I lost all alacrity of thought. I was not surprised, even, to find a ‘lady of the night’ upon my own arm before terribly long—I believe the one who had first caught my glance—though I assured her I wouldn’t be in need of her services.
The talk and the revelry wore on into the wee hours, and eventually those beleaguered souls who had found a girl for the night (or who’d had simply too much ale) retired to the upper rooms or to the streets, singing slurred drinking songs as their feet ferried them unsteadily toward whatever would suffice as a bed. The noise subsided measure for measure with the crowd as the rest of us sat and talked on and on.
“What about this captain Leitlöfer?” I asked at long length, my third or fourth (or maybe even fifth) ale having subdued my conscience and put me in a near dreamlike state of mind.
“What about him?” retorted Tristan. “He’s a poof.”
The mates raised up a tremendous laugh at that, as though finally free to do so.
“Poof?” I asked.
“A flit. A molly. A nancy.”
“So are you saying he’s…”
“He prefers the company of the fellows to that of the ladies,” laughed Tristan as I struggled for comprehension.
“Well,” I said at last, “that much I suppose I could see from his choice of companions. Er, that is, present company excluded. How did such a man become captain of the Mathilda?”
The laughter quickly died down. Apparently, I was touching a nerve with this line of inquiry.
“Let’s get something straight, you and I,” began Tristan, pulling me off to one side by the collar. “That man is not our captain. He’s a mutinous swine, and he deserves to be bound in irons and sent to the locker!”
“Mutinous?” I stammered.
“The Mathilda is not the name of our ship.”
“Your ship?”
“Yes. Its right name is Brigadier Schwepp.”
“Sort of an odd name,” said I.
“The name hardly enters into it,” snapped Tristan.
“What did capt—er, I suppose I should say, mister Leitlöfer do?”
“He led a band of mutineers against the captain and a few of his most loyal mates—myself, Will, and the rest of the lads included.”
“Who is the right captain?” I asked.
“His name is Benji McGaff.”
“Well, where is he?”
“God willing and he ain’t dead, stuck on some accursed little cay in the south Indian sea.”
“What?” I cried. “Why, that’s the other side of the world!”
“She ain’t always been a pleasure vessel,” said Tristan, and I could see the faintest hint of a gleam in his eye, though whether it was a tear of remembrance or a glimmer of hope I couldn’t tell.
“Is that so?” I said. “What was she before?”
“She was a privateer.”
———
Though Tristan endeavored to tell me the full story of the Brigadier Schwepp, in his and my quite inebriated states I only managed to comprehend bits and pieces. What follows is an account which I learned piecemeal from several different members of the crew over the course of my association therewith, and hence which almost invariably contains more than a little embellishment, hyperbole and downright fabrication.
Nevertheless, the Brigadier Schwepp had begun her life as a French frigate, whose name none of the current crew could either pronounce or remember. She had fallen under British control during a sortie, at which point she was given her current namesake. She’d had most of her armament removed while in the brief possession of the Royal Navy, and was bought by a private holding, McGaff and co., and put into service as an on-demand cargo vessel serving ports all over the world.
However, as naval warfare continually evolved, the need for smaller, swifter and more lightly armed vessels like the Schwepp became so great that many merchant ships were enlisted as privateers to orchestrate counter-raids on the French corvettes that were harrowing English shipping lines. These privateer vessels operated independently of the Royal Navy, and the captain and crew of such a ship were allowed a portion of the spoils from each vessel they captured, with the majority share going to the British government. Captain McGaff jumped at this chance, and was off to sea practically before the ink on his letter of marque had dried.
The Schwepp had quite a cosmopolitan sailing crew already, but in order to make her an effective fighter, a group of about eighty merchant marines was hired, under the guiding hand of retired navy lieutenant Franz Leitlöfer. The ship was refitted and re-rigged as a twenty-one gun schooner, and in this configuration she proved to be faster, sleeker and deadlier than ever to her larger, less maneuverable opponents. She was so well-suited to her task, in fact, that in her very first tour she captured seven enemy vessels, bringing all of them back to Britain more or less intact and beginning what looked to be a promising—perhaps even legendary—career.
By the time she sailed what would prove to be her last voyage as a privateer, she had captured more than twenty enemy ships. In the final sortie, she boldly went up against the French ship-of-the-line Triveste, a retired warship in use by merchants but whose three-deck broadside still outweighed her by nearly four guns to one.
Since a straight-up fight was out of the question, the Schwepp used her superior mobility to dart in and out of range of Triveste’s bow and stern, peppering her rudder with fire until, miraculously, the much larger French vessel found itself unable to effectively steer. The guns that could be brought to bear at Triveste’s fore and aft could not match the ten guns to a side that the Schwepp was free to fire at will.
Better still, when the Scwepp did finally pull along side, the much taller Triveste was incapable of firing directly upon her with all but her lowest guns, which were quickly disabled by a skilled and decisive volley from the Schwepp. The large company of marines hidden below deck then sprang into action, scaling Triveste’s sloped sides and falling upon its crew with great speed and skill. Eventually, the crew of the Schwepp prevailed, and the Triveste’s crew were bound and held in the galley.
When McGaff and his crew despoiled Triveste, they quickly saw that the ship housed a considerable fortune, enough to make every man in the crew richer than he ever thought possible, even those who had recently hired on and who were only entitled to a quarter share. Apparently, Triveste had had a lucrative run as a merchant vessel, and had in its stores a vast treasure of coin as well as goods.
The decision to keep the spoils instead of returning them (along with the ship) to the Royal Navy was not made lightly, but it was made all the same. Pretending to have gone off in search of other prey, the Schwepp left the disabled Triveste adrift in the south Atlantic, carrying her treasure away.
Captain McGaff then charted a course known only to him, and the Schwepp came ashore at some little cay in an unknown part of the Atlantic ocean, which he later affectionately named ‘Tattoo Island’. There— just as had been romanticized in the literature of piracy for the past half-century—the crew divided the hoard into a chest for each man and buried it in the sand. They all took an oath of secrecy about their plot, and death to him who broke it.
The plan was then to hunt down and take a much smaller vessel than Triveste, passing it off as the Schwepp’s only prey. The mission went successfully, and they returned to the British main towing an eighteen gun corvette, La Vie, for which they were modestly paid. Captain McGaff then resigned his letters of marque, intending to return to Tattoo Island and his prize as soon as the ship was stocked and ready.
Now, captain McGaff had a wife of several years, Molly Cornwallis-McGaff, a pistol of a woman who had sailed with him during the Schwepp’s privateering career. Together they shared a passionate romance, one product of which was their son, DeLeroy, whom Benji insisted on calling ‘Gunner’ for what he thought were obvious reasons. It happened that Molly’s sister, who lived on their family’s rural farmstead some forty miles outside of London, fell sick with a consumption or some such. Molly decided she would remain on land to care for her while Benji sailed out with their son to reclaim the treasure.
As soon as the Schwepp was under sail, she was given chase by a trio of British cutters under the command of Commodore Lucius Gant, signaling that she was to be boarded. In a moment of bravado (or, perhaps, panic), captain Benji pretended not to notice Gant’s ships, instead deciding to put Scwepp’s speed to the test. The pursuit lasted well into a month, until finally Gant managed to outmaneuver McGaff following a storm that left all four vessels wracked.
Captain McGaff acquiesced without a fight, mostly at the behest of his crew. Schwepp was escorted back to Britain, where McGaff and his crew were arrested under suspicion of treason. Somehow, news of Triveste’s defeat and unauthorized despoiling had reached the Royal Navy—though whether by means of a French informant or a traitorous crewman, no one would ever know. The McGaff’s were tried, though a lack of permissible evidence led to the case being dismissed after many long months of rather circuitous litigation, due largely in part to the wildly conflicting testimonies of the Schwepp’s hundred crewmen.
Molly, furious at her husband for deliberately defying the Royal Navy—let alone endangering the life of their only son—vowed to divorce the man. The passion that was a defining feature of their marriage paled in comparison to that which they leveled against each other in its dissolution. Words flew, accusations were made, and a long and uncomely litany of neglect, infidelity and drunkenness was dredged up, indicting both of them in equal measure.
Another acrimonious court proceeding was now well underway. Up for grabs were the McGaff estate—primarily the Brigadier Schwepp and its accoutrements, including (so it was thought) the map to Tattoo Island and great riches—as well as the custody of their son. In order to keep his beloved offspring, Benji wagered everything he had on his wife’s greed, which he surmised must at least equal his own. Molly was a shrewd lady, to be sure, but she was also a loving mother. When the whole mess was finally sorted out, she had sole custody of DeLeroy, and Benji had a rather bullet-ridden, weather-beaten ship and a furious crew in want of their rightful pay.
Eventually, Brigadier Schwepp was put back in order and her provisions restocked, and Benji and his discontented crew set out once more. Though the captain was a proud man and an uncompassionate commander, in want of his wife and son he became a bit soft, a bit waifish. He kept to himself by day, only emerging from his cabin at night to navigate the ship.
He sailed on for weeks and weeks, until their provisions began running dry. Still they hadn’t reached Tattoo Island. The crew became restless and impetuous, and might have called for his blood right then and there, had not a tremendous storm blown through. They were dragged leagues off course, and had to hug the shoreline of southernmost Africa to avoid being capsized by the enormous ocean swells. When the storm finally ceded, they found that they’d cleared the Cape of Good Hope and had entered the Indian Ocean.
Once the ship was patched up, the matter of the Captain’s erratic and mysterious behavior was addressed. The crew elected Mr. Leitlöfer, who was the most amicable among them, to try and talk some sense into the man. Franz eventually learned that Benji had forgotten the way to Tattoo Island and that, in all honesty, the man seemed less concerned about claiming his treasure—or even saving the crew’s lives—than he did about the loss of his wife’s love.
Upon hearing this, the majority of the crew—including Mr. Leitlöfer and most (if not all) of the marines—decided that the only sensible thing to be done was to mutiny, and to bring the ship into port at Cape Town to restock it. As far as mutinies go, it was a rather bloodless affair, with those loyal to the captain ensuring his fair treatment. They cast him away on a tiny speck of an island some hundred miles off the coast of South Africa, and then Mr. Leitlöfer was instilled as the ship’s new captain by a vote of seventy to fifteen with eight abstentions.
The ship made port in Cape Town, and the Captain’s loyalists disembarked and found their own ways from there, all save first mate Warwal and a few of his most trusted friends. They made a secret pact among the six of them that they would remain with the ship until such time as they could reclaim it for their rightful captain and rescue him from his island prison.
After much searching in vain for the whereabouts of Tattoo Island, Captain Leitlöfer then determined that the best course of action was to abandon the search for treasure and engage the ship in some manner of gainful employment. At his behest, they weighed anchor and set off across the Atlantic for the colony of America, a land of great opportunity for anyone willing to risk its many hazards.
———
The Kelp and Scupper all but emptied, Will, Tristan and I sat and talked on into the wee hours of morning. I could see that the ‘girls’ (as the mates generally referred to them) were growing impatient with us, hoping by now to have led us into the upper storey to relieve us of our tensions and (moreover) our coin.
“So…” I slurred. I had already lost count of the number of ales I’d had. “What, exactly, has Mr. Leitlöfer turned the ship into?”
“He’s always credited himself on being a ‘forward thinker’,” answered Tristan groggily. The girl in his lap had even fallen asleep. “He decided that, rather than turn pirate (as many privateers do when they’re in want of work), the ship would instead be refitted to reflect the golden age of piracy, and that we should take on guests—wealthy lubbers, mostly—who want to live a pirate’s life for a week or two at a time, without fear of being hanged.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“He calls it a ‘barefoot cruise’,” said Will. “The idea being like a normal pleasure cruise for rich folk, except aboard a real-life privateer for the authentic buccaneer experience. It was supposed to be the sort o’ a thing where rich women come to ‘let their hair down, an’ their bodices loosen’, as Leitlöfer put it, which o’ course sounded like a grand idea to the blokes and me. And it started out that way, it really did! Strangest thing I ever saw; well-to-do women beddin’ down wit’ seafarin’ folk like Tristan an’ me, after nothin’ more’n a week at sea!
“Turns out, though, that Leitlöfer always had in mind more of a ‘men only’ sort o’ affair, and after a while the ladies was fewer and fewer, and the poofs was more and more. ‘Fore too long, the marines grew fed up wit’ it, and hired on wit’ other crews.”
“Whereabouts do you sail on these pretend pirate voyages?” I asked.
“Up an’ down the coast, mainly,” said Will. “Been as far as the outer banks of North Carolina, drank rum wit’ the ghost of blackbeard on the beaches of Ocracoke.
“Aye,” agreed Tristan. “Up and down the American coast we go. No small wonder we ain’t been sunk by the British or the Continentals yet! Puttin’ our lives in graver danger than as privateers, an for what? Little more’n a tip here an’ there an’ the occasional root in the galley!”
“An’ the rootin’s long since been precluded, e’er since ‘cap’n’ insisted we take on only his actor an’ poet chums,” sighed Will.
“That does seem unfortunate,” said I. “Why don’t you enact your plan now, when his loyalists have all gone?”
“See, that’s just it,” said Tristan. “Ever since the marines jumped ship, we been stuck here in the port o’ New York. I think Leitlöfer is wise to our plot. He figures as long as he stays at dock, we can’t do to him what we’d like (as we could out on open seas), for fear o’ bein’ arrested too easily.”
“Aye,” agreed Will. “He invites his mates over every night, and shipboard they can be loud and obnoxious as they please, carryin’ on in whate’er manner suits ‘em best. Meanwhile we’re treated more or less as waiters an’ servants. As long as they keep payin’ the docking fee and providin’ him wit’ meal and drink, he ain’t going nowhere.”
“Well, it seems he was kind enough to offer Captain McGraff a nonviolent recourse,” I said. “Perhaps he deserves the same courtesy?”
“I told you what he deserves,” scowled Tristan. “An iron anklet and a long walk off a short pier.”
“He doesn’t seem such an horrible fellow…”
“I’ll give him that he seems quite amiable, certainly,” said Tristan. “But my money’s on him being the one as informed the RN what we’d done wit’ Triveste’s holdings, and all wit’ the aim of ousting the cap’n and taking the Schwepp for himself.”
“Goodness!” I cried. “Do you have proof of this treachery?”
“I don’t,” said Tristan. “It’s just the feelin’ I’ve always gotten from the man. He may act like it, dancin’ about in ladies’ getup an’ such, but he ain’t a fool, an’ no mistakin’ it. Almost made off wit’ the cap’n’s treasure, too. His only error was in gettin’ rid of ‘im before gettin’ his hands on the map to Tattoo Isle. Turns out he couldn’t find the place, either, an’ searchin’ the ship for it turned up nothin’.”
“Even still, it seems wrong to drown a man for something you haven’t even proven he’s done.”
“You’ve got some kind of gall, lad, y’ know that? You ain’t been privy to our predicament but more’n a few hours, an’ already you’re telling us what we should an’ shouldn’t do?”
“I’m just calling the situation as I see it.”
“Well, what would you have us do, eh? Even supposin’ we oust Leitlöfer without gettin’ involved with the local authorities, we haven’t got the manpower to even bring the Schwepp out of the harbor, let alone make any type of ocean voyage!”
“Not even with seven?” I said.
“Six hands and a lubber hardly counts as seven, an’ even wit’ seven we’d be undermanned. We’d need almost twice that many to even think about sailin’ her well.”
“Simply ain’t got the manpower,” nodded Will. “An’ not a self-respectin’ seaman alive wants to sign on under Leitlöfer.”
Were I in a normal frame of mind, I mightn’t even have thought what I next said, but at the time it seemed the most wonderfully simple solution to the crew’s predicament.
“So you haven’t the manpower,” I began. “What about the womanpower?”
Will laughed aloud and Tristan chuckled, and the girls each held in his lap stirred.
“What about it?” asked Will, shaking his head. The girl in his lap leaned back and scowled.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said. Her name, I believe, ended up being Emily, but she’d gone by ‘Lavender’ all the days of her working life. Finally taking the time to get a good look at her, I saw that she was slighter of build than most women her age, being probably four or five years my senior. Her bright blonde hair was wound in spiraling locks, and though her face was heavily made up at the moment, she was quite pretty otherwise.
She had a face put together out of smallish features, the most striking of which were a pair of ochre eyes, which were quite piercing and alert now that her ire had been invoked. Will, a little put off by her sudden severity, hesitated for a moment, stammering:
“Well, I mean, let’s look at the simple matters of strength and fortitude.”
“Strength and fortitude?” cried Emily. “You think I ain’t got both o’ them in spades? I put up with the likes of you every damn night! You think they’re all as gentlemanly as you? Honey, I’ve had to put more’n one o’ them out cold for tryin’ to take more’n what was offered!”
Tristan and I had a bit of a chuckle in spite of ourselves. The girl on Tristan’s lap, who went by ‘Ruby’ but was actually named Rachel, nodded her agreement.
“This line o’ work ain’t for ladies,” she said. “When dealin’ with men, you got to be tough as a man—or tougher!”
Tristan, looking rather enamored of her just then, seemed to bite his tongue, saying:
“Well, I wasn’t insinuating that——
“Yes you was,” snapped Rachel. “If a girl can do this to herself night after night after night, she can sure’s hell haul up the main brace an’ whatever else it is you salty dogs do! Hell, it’d be a welcome reprieve!”
“Wouldn’t it just?” nodded Emily. She stood and found her way to an empty chair, spinning it around and straddling the back, folding her arms across the top. “To be a freed woman, earning your keep from the work of your hands, rather than form that what’s twixt your thighs?”
“To get out o’ this hellhole of a town!” cried Rachel, sliding into a chair beside Tristan.
“To see the world!” grinned Emily.
“Well, there you have it,” I said as the women broke out into laughter. “I’ve never seen so fine a spirit, even among the well-to-do of upstate!”
“There’s a girl here for every man on your crew,” said Rachel, tapping the table with her finger and leaning in close toward Tristan, a rather serious look about her. Several strands of her shining brown hair fell about her face.
“What about Thom?” chuckled Will. “Only one ain’t yet bedded down!”
Rachel and Emily both eyed me up with the same blasé expression.
“Call him a man if you like,” continued Rachel. “My point remains: you said you needed almost twice what you’ve got to sail the Schwepp. Honey, you’ve got it. Thirteen’s as good as fourteen, eh? We find Thom a girl and you’ve got all you said you need.”
Tristan looked genuinely at a loss for words.
“But… what about your life here?” he said at last. “What about the Madame? You’d risk incurring her wrath?”
“This ain’t no kind of a life to grow old with,” sighed Rachel, her bluish-gray eyes growing a bit distant. “If what you say about the treasure is true, we can leave this place forever and retire on the high seas.”
Tristan raised an eyebrow at her.
“You’re serious about this?” he asked.
“Dead serious,” said Rachel. “I was listening, when you were regaling young Thom here about the buried riches of Tattoo Island. If I’ve done my arithmetic correctly, You lost about seventy marines. That’s seventy quarter shares, or more’n sixteen full ones. Plenty enough to pay a full one each to me, Emily, lord Thom here and the other girls—plus at least another quarter-to-half each to you, us and the rest of the crew—if we help you oust Mr. Leitlöfer.”
Tristan appeared stunned. Though drunk as I was, he very much seemed to be considering the gravity of Rachel’s words. If I weren’t mistaken, he also looked like a man who’d just fallen madly in love. While he pondered Rachel’s offer, out of the corner of my eye I saw Emily run a gentle hand through Will’s hair, then stroke the side of his rough face before slapping it playfully.
“There’s also the obvious, added benefit of having half-a-dozen workin’ girls aboard,” she said with a wink. Will and Tristan locked eyes for a moment, the gears in their heads obviously (albeit slowly) working the matter out.
“You ladies drive a hard bargain,” said Tristan at last. “I’m afraid I see no other alternative. Leastwise, not one I like so much as having at least a lady for every man aboard, save lord Thom.”
“So… wait,” I stammered. “This means you’ll have me aboard, too?”
I was (though far from sober) elated and terrified all at once. Rachel narrowed her remarkably well-made eyes at me.
“Of course,” she said. “Why, if not, we’d have to kill you for being privy to this dastardly plot.”
Though I was quick to laugh, I saw equally quickly that the other four looked just as serious as Rachel. I felt my face go quite flush for a moment.
“Oh,” I said, a palpable fear in my eyes, I was certain. “Oh, of course. Yes, I suppose that’s according to the code, isn’t it?”
The two men and two ladies stared at me for barely a second longer, before they broke out in a chorus of guffaws all at once. I suddenly realized I had been made the butt of a joke once again. I supposed this must mean the beginning of a trend, and one I didn’t much like.
“It ain’t going to be easy to get rid of Leitlöfer,” continued Tristan.
“No?” said Rachel. “We’re women skilled in getting what we want, by making men think they’re getting what they want.”
Will snickered, saying:
“And what if you ain’t got what a particular man wants?” he said.
Rachel reached into the folds of her dress, seemingly producing a dagger from nowhere. This she stuck point-first into the table, with enough force to leave it standing upright like a defiant flagpole.
“If not, I’ll slit his throat,” she said.
Will, Tristan and I were quite taken aback, as was Emily. Rachel eyed up all of us menacingly, before withdrawing the dagger and laughing quite freely and casually, as if to make sport of what she had spoken. Not a one of us, however, seemed to doubt that she’d do exactly as she said. Even Tristan, veteran of many a shipboard battle, seemed to be in awe of the woman and her fighting spirit.
“Well,” he said at last, his eyes locked with Rachel’s, “as the right cap’n Benji’s first mate, therefore speaker o’ the ship in his stead, I accept your offer of service.”
He held out his hand, and Rachel shook it firmly.
“We should put the exact terms in writing,” she said.
Emily disappeared for a moment, returning a short while later with several pieces of stationary in hand. As she set them upon the table, the scent of the French perfume they had been blotted with wafted toward me. She must have seen me raise a curious eyebrow, for she turned to me and said:
“We use them to write very explicit letters to men who are going to be long at sea with nary a woman in sight.”
“It helps lessen the want of them,” said Will, pulling Emily back into his lap. “However nothing but the real thing will suffice.”
The sight of them laughing as lovers might made be blush and turn away. I was wholly unaccustomed to the relationship between working girls and sailors, though it seemed, at least in some ways, to more closely approximate real devotion and consideration than many of the lifelong marriages I had seen. I had, perhaps, learned more of women and how they relate to men in this one evening than in my entire short existence—which is not to say particularly much, just more than before.
“Will, you’re a lawyer, right?” laughed Tristan, apparently mocking both my dress and serious demeanor with a single, backhanded compliment. I shook my head and said that I wasn’t. “Even so,” he continued, “You’re the most learned among us. Won’t you draw up the contract?”
He slid me the stationary and the pot and quill, and I grudgingly took them up and prepared to take dictation. Tristan stood and put his hands behind his back, beginning to pace around the table. Halting for a few seconds between each sentence, he laid out the terms of the contract as best he could from memory and while still edging his way toward sobriety.
“We, being the first mate, and by his proxy the captain, and the crew of the privateer Brigadier Schwepp (hereinafter: ‘ship’), on this the Fourteenth day of May, Seventeen Hundred and Ninety Five, do solemnly and unanimously agree upon the hiring o’ no fewer than six an’ no more than seven prostitutes of the unnamed establishment operatin’ in close conjunction with the Kelp and Scupper (hereinafter: ‘girls’), and of one lord Thom Madagascar (hereinafter: ‘Thom’), to be considered, for all intents and purposes, ‘mates’ aboard said ship, with all responsibilities and privileges appertainin’ thereto, includin’, but not limited to: performin’ all duties required of a mate while on duty, heedin’ any an’ all commands from rankin’ officers at all times, an’ generally ensurin’ the well-bein’ of all other crew and of all properties, both material and immaterial, of said ship, for as long as said girls and said Thom are in said ship’s employ. Did you get all that?”
“All properties, both material and immaterial, of said ship, for as long as said girls and said Thom are in said ship’s employ,” I repeated, penning the words as swiftly as I could.
“Very good,” said Tristan. “Perhaps we’ll find a use for you yet! Now then, the reward for fulfilling such duties shall be no less than a full share of all booty incurred by said ship while said girls and said Thom are in its employ. Failure to fulfill such duties shall result in forfeiture of all rewards, and may result in additional punishment as set forth in the ship’s charter, section seven, pages thirty-three through thirty-six.”
“Ship’s charter, section seven, pages thirty-three through thirty-six,” I said.
“Draw a set of lines underneath,” said Tristan. “Seven or eight o’ them, enough space for the ladies an’ you t’ make their marks.”
I did as I was told, then presented the contract to Tristan and Rachel for their approval. Each read it slowly, mouthing some of the words to themselves as they did, and eventually they both looked up at me and then at each other.
“Do you agree to the terms?” Tristan asked.
“Aye,” said Rachel, taking the pen and signing her right name. She handed it to Emily, who nodded enthusiastically and did likewise. All eyes then turned to me again, and as the quill and stationary were placed in front of me, I felt my head go quite light.
I honestly had no idea what I was in for, and were it possible to tell me then what I’ve since learned, I might have stood up and run away right then and there. The combination of my drunkenness, my titillation and my desire to end all questions as to my manhood propelled me onward, however, and before I knew what I was doing, I had made my mark.
I looked up and saw smiling faces all around, and as Will and Tristan took the pen and paper and forever consummated the agreement, another round of ale was called for. The girls partook as well, their desire to bed and charge us having all but fled in light of the adventure that was afoot. We drank and caroused on into the night, but before morning’s light, we crept into the upper rooms, woke the other mates and the girls that’d had them, and formalized the matter between all parties involved. Feeling quite bold, we took to the streets in preparation for the fight that was to come.
