Pieces of Eight. John Drake

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СКАЧАТЬ with coarse and leering persons, mostly drunk and none of them quiet, with the governor and his entourage long gone.

      “Ahem!” said the bishop. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here this day in the sight of God and this congregation…”

      Eventually they let the bishop go, shoving him out the front door, his chaplain close behind. There, Mr O’Byrne capped insult upon injury by presenting each clergyman with a gratuity of fifty Spanish dollars in a purse tied up with ribbon.

      Bang went the door, and they were free. For an instant the bishop stood trembling and close to tears. Then he snarled, “Give me that!” And, snatching the chaplain’s purse, he hurled it, together with his own, straight back into the house through one of Miss Cooper’s windows. If he’d hoped the gesture to be accompanied by the smashing of glass, he was disappointed; all was thrown open for the cool night air. “Bah!” he cried. “A lost labour and an affront to God!”

      “What is, Your Grace?” said the chaplain.

      “This!” said the bishop, spreading his arms to encompass the entire island.

      Inside, roaring and swaying in unison, the men of the company were helping Cap’n Bentham upstairs for his wedding night, bellowing obscene advice. The women, meanwhile, were assisting the new Mrs Bentham out of her clothes, before tucking her into the house’s best bed.

      “Ah!” said Bentham at last, leaning his back against the locked door, and “Huh!” as from outside there came the rumble and thunder of Mr O’Byrne removing all those who would have pressed their ears to the wood for further entertainment.

      “Now, my little Catalina!” said Bentham.

      “Oh, senhor!” she said, and the blood pumped into his loins at the sight of her, sat small and helpless against the pillows, with a linen sheet pulled protectively under her chin. Miss Cooper’s girls had expertly combed out her hair and spread it around her shoulders, while Catalina herself had been a virgin recently enough to remember a maiden’s modesty, and to deliver a representation of it sufficiently convincing for Danny Bentham.

      “Senhor,” she pleaded, “seja delicado…”

      “Be gentle?” said Bentham. “I’ll show you gentle, my girl!” and he swept off clothes, boots, belt and sword, to stand magnificently naked before his bride, legs spread wide and hands on hips.

      “Oh!” said Catalina, sitting up straighter and staring in wonderment, for Danny Bentham’s body was something to see: slim-waisted, smooth and muscular, with long legs, strong arms, and gleaming skin. Catalina thought it a sight to please any bride–apart from the undoubted presence of a fine pair of breasts and the undoubted absence of anything between the legs that stood to attention, or even dangled at ease. In fact there was simply nothing. (Indeed there was doubly nothing, since to explain his smooth chin, Cap’n Bentham called daily for razor, soap and water, and having nothing else to shave, shaved what he had.)

      “Hmm…” said Catalina, who understood a lot more than these stupid English thought, and who’d never for a moment believed she’d got a permanent husband: one that would last longer than the dollars she’d been paid. But she had thought she’d got a handsome husband and had been looking forward to the wedding night.

      Que piedade, she thought; what a pity. But Captain Bentham thought otherwise. There was not the slightest equivocation in “his” mind as he leapt on to the bed, throwing sheets aside and seizing his wriggling, naked bride with absolute conviction, abandoned passion, and remarkable technique, for Danny Bentham liked women, and only women, and had learned how to please them.

      Outside, Mr O’Byrne was at his station, lounging in a chair backed against the door with a bottle of rum for company, still keeping dirty-minded eavesdroppers from their sport.

      “Uh! Uh! Uh!” came Bentham’s voice, muffled through the door.

      “Go to it, me hearty!” said O’Byrne, and drank a toast.

      “Oh! Oh! Oh!” came the other voice.

      “Give her one for me, by Christ, Cap’n!”

       “Oh! Oh! Oh!”

      “Go on, my galloping boy!”

       “Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!”

       Chapter 4

       Two bells of the forenoon watch (c. 9 a.m. shore time) 7th October 1752 Aboard Walrus The southern Caribbean.

      “No!” said Selena, “I won’t go below. I want to see.”

      “Damn it, girl, do as you’re bid,” said Flint, while beside them at the tiller, Tom Allardyce the bosun worked hard not to notice the argument, focusing instead on the ship they were chasing.

      “She’s Dutch, Cap’n!” he said. “Round stern and bilanderrigged, and she’s hard up in a clinch with no knife to cut the seizing!”

      Flint snapped out his glass and looked. Allardyce was right–he must have marvellous eyes: it was a Dutchman, heavily storm-damaged, and plodding along helpless. So much the better! He turned to Selena. “Go below, girl!” he muttered. “Don’t play the little madam with me!” Then he raised his voice cheerfully to the men standing to the guns and ready at the sails: “There’s our dockyard, lads!” he cried. “Our planking and rum, and our pickles and pork!”

      The men cheered. Walrus had taken a battering in the fight against Lion; heavy shot into her hull had spoiled stores, sprung leaks, wrecked her windlass, and blown away her binnacle and compasses. Desperately short of provisions and fit only for a short voyage, Walrus remained sound aloft. Now, charging onward under foresails and gaffs, mainsail and topsails, she was going like a mail-coach on a turnpike.

      “Go below!” said Flint. “There’s danger…and things unfit for you to see.”

      “No!” she said. “Not this time. I won’t be shut up below!”

      Flint’s eyes showed white all round. Nobody said no when Flint said yes. In agitation he reached up to his shoulder to pet the parrot that was his friend and darling…and which was no longer there because he’d lost it to Silver. Just as he’d got Selena, Silver had got the parrot.

      “Huh!” he said, snatching down his hand before anyone should see. “You shall do as you are bid!” And he grabbed Selena, pulling her close and breathing the scent of her. He breathed it deep and felt her warmth and looked into her eyes. This was a new game. He knew it. She knew it. He’d been playing it ever since the island: finding excuses to brush past her, to touch her, and even–on one occasion–attempting to slide a hand inside her shirt to touch her naked skin.

      Yes. A shining dawn was breaking for Joe Flint. Thanks to Selena, his lifelong, shameful incapacity seemed to be on the mend, and the dormant contents of his breeches were stirring. Conversely, Selena felt that for her the sun was going down. Flint was master aboard Walrus and would take whatever he wanted the instant he became capable of taking it.

      “Flint!” she said СКАЧАТЬ