The Pyrates. George Fraser MacDonald

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       CHAPTER

       THE THIRD

      In the taproom, whither they had dragged him battered and bruised as he was, Colonel Blood fetched his breath while the gamesters reviled him, the wench giggled, one burly minion brushed the stolen coat, and another snarled: “Bide you there, ye muckrake, whiles Oi fetch a constable. ’Tis the Roundhouse for ’ee, aye, an’ the gallows therearter, damn ’ee!”

      This seemed a reasonable forecast to Blood, who promptly swooned lower on his bench, gasping “Water! Water!”, at which they reviled him harder than ever, but relaxed their guard, with the result that one minion was suddenly rolling on the floor, clutching his groin and making statements, the other had the fine coat wrenched from his grasp (the Colonel, a realist, knew that you can’t get far in your shirt-sleeves) and an iron fist smashed against his jaw, and before the wench could even squeal or the gamesters swear, foxy Tom was off and running.

      Naturally, they pursued, minions, gamesters, landlord, bystanders, and other interested parties – including, eventually, the outraged husband, once he had recovered from his unexpectedly joyous reunion and hurried downstairs. And nip and double as Blood might, his beaten limbs (not improved, of course, by late nights, booze, women, and too much smoking the day before the match) would inevitably have let him down had his headlong flight not carried him suddenly out on to a long cobbled wharf thronged with porters, hawkers, fishwives, seamen, loiterers, and all the motley of the waterfront. In an instant the Colonel was lost in the shifting human tide, which bore him along while he got his breath back, straightened his coat, and regretted that he had no hat to complete the appearance of a genteel saunterer slumming.

      A great ship was making ready for sea, and Blood paused by her gangplank to look round for signs of pursuit. All clear behind, and he was about to stroll on when he saw, dead ahead, the breathless figures of the fat gamester and one of the burly minions moving questingly through the crowds in his general direction. The Colonel wheeled smartly about – only to see emerging, from the alley down which he had run, a constable, the other minion, and in the rear the cuckolded husband, buttoning his weskit askew and inquiring thunderously about a black-avised rascal in a red coat. As heads turned and the two sets of pursuers continued to converge at random, Colonel Blood looked desperately for a bolt-hole. The gangway was before him, and as two seamen staggered on to it under the weight of a furled tarpaulin, he hesitated no longer, but used them as a shield to slip swiftly on to the ship’s crowded deck. One quick look back showed him the outraged husband and the fat gamester hailing each other over the heads of the mob; Blood pushed hurriedly past a couple of bare-footed seamen, rounded a pile of casks, and came face to face with a bawling red face in a brass-buttoned coat and cocked hat.

      “Sink an’ be damned!” it roared. “An’ how in thunder do I know where the swab o’ a surgeon should sling his hammock? ’A can sleep i’ the scuppers; ’a’ll be drunk enough not to notice! How now, sir?” it demanded of Blood. “What make ye here? We’re putting to sea, or damme! No, we’re not – not while them tarts an’ trollops are fouling my ship!” And he rolled furiously past Blood, a bosun at his heels, bawling the odds at the waterfront slatterns who were keeping his men from their work forward; at his instructions the bosun passed among them with a rope’s end, belabouring them towards the gangplank, while all around the seamen hurriedly pulled ropes and battened hatches and shouted through cupped hands and spat resoundingly – doing all those things needful, d’ye see, to get a ship under weigh.

      “Avast there! Get in the forrard plank!” yelled the red-faced man. “Yarely, an’ be damned, wi’ a pox on’t!” Plainly he was another Farnol graduate, one of that barnacle-crusted band whose natural ancestor is the bosun in “The Tempest” – the one who is responsible for the greatest stage-direction Shakespeare ever wrote: “Enter mariners, wet.” He rolled about the place, roaring and belaying, and then his eye fell on Blood again, and he bellowed – but with a certain respect for one well-dressed: “Now then, you, sir, blast me bollocks an’ by y’r leave! What, sir? What make ye, master? It’s go ashore or go to Calicut, or hoist me for a lubber, what?” And his gesture invited the Colonel to the gangplank – at the foot of which the fat gamester was plainly visible, craning his neck as he surveyed the crowded wharf. Colonel Blood had his choice, and took it.

      “But, captain,” said he, with desperate nonchalance, keeping under cover of the casks, “Calicut is where I wish to go. News came this morning … my rich uncle’s dead o’ the flux or the gout or the fever or somewhat. Shocking sudden, and the plantation going to the devil. I had your direction … and where the devil my man Jenkin is with the dunnage, God knows. Ye can give me passage, I dare swear?”

      “What, sir? Carry ye to Calicut, rot me? Why, sir, now, sir!” The captain rubbed grizzled chin wi’ horny paw and considered the appellant – rich lace, good coat, rakehelly genteel, dressed in a hurry … but then, he’d admitted as much. “Why, y’r worship, it might be,” he conceded. “A four-month passage, let’s see – I could make room at a pinch, for … forty guineas, now?”

      Above the ship’s noise a distant voice could be heard complaining: “… and the dam’ gallows-bait had my guineas, too!” Colonel Blood did not hesitate, but pulled the purse from his pocket and tossed it over negligently to the captain. “A bagatelle,” said he, and the roaring skipper promptly knuckled his hat, and beamed, crying “Thank’ee, y’r honour, I’ll see ye have a comf’table berth, y’r honour, crisp me liver if I don’t! Yardley’s the name, sir; Cap’n Yardley. Steward! Hell’s bells an’ hailstones, will ye lay aft, steward, damn ’ee?”

      The Colonel was too old a hand to regret his lost cash; it had been necessary. The question now was whether to kiss it good-bye and steal ashore later, or to avail himself of this unexpected magic carpet away from London – a place which might be uncomfortably hot for him. India? He had never been there, and had no great desire to go … on the other hand, he was one who had always lived where he’d hung his castor – why not? He’d have four months’ board and lodging in the meantime. As he considered, he lurked, and presently saw his baffled pursuers take themselves off; the resolve was forming in his mind … he’d quite enjoy a sea-trip, and the Indies, by all accounts, offered a fruitful field to men of his talents. He allowed himself to be shown his berth, shed his too-conspicuous coat, and sallied forth on deck again to view the orderly bustle of the ship as the final preliminaries to sailing went ahead right handily, with cheery yo-ho and bronzed backs bending to haul, pipes twittering, captain bawling, men hasting aloft, capstan turning, and that sort of thing, with salty baritones roaring:

      Where is the trader o’ Stepney Town? Clap it on, slap it on, How the hell should I know?

      And up the gangplank, striding tall, came a superbly handsome young man in a naval coat and hat, his buttons glinting keenly at his surroundings; he bore a polished oak box under one arm, and his sea-chest was wheeled СКАЧАТЬ