Skull and Bones. John Drake

to make his fortune in London with his skills as a mathematical instrument maker, for nothing good had come thus far: only Livvy Rose keeping company with that lumpish oaf of a ship’s boy.

      Boom! A distant gun fired, and on deck, the crew ducked as another shot came howling down and smashed into the hull. The boy looked astern as his captain yelled from the quarterdeck.

      “There, sir!” cried Captain Nehemia Higgs, seizing hold of the man beside him, the ship’s owner Mr Samuel Banbury, and shaking him angrily. “Now where’s your peaceful way?”

      Banbury said nothing, but pulled free and, wrenching off his coat and shirt, ran forward to jam the crumpled linen deep into the fallen seaman’s hideous injury in an effort to stem the flow of blood.

      “Aaaaaaaah!” screeched the wounded man.

      “And may I now – in God’s name – turn to my guns?” yelled Captain Higgs.

      “Aye!” roared the crew, nearly two dozen of them, angrily waiting for the order. Their captain might be a Quaker, but at least he was one of the right sort – unlike Mr Banbury, who was clearly one of the wrong sort. The crew, on the other hand, weren’t no sort of Quakers at all – not them, by God and the Devil! And they weren’t about to give up their wages at the mere sight of a black flag!

      Ignoring them, Banbury tugged off his belt and managed to strap it round the wounded seaman’s chest to hold the dripping red bundle in place. Looking around him for help, he spotted the boy.

      “You!” cried Banbury. “Give me your shirt!”

      So two shirts were clapped on the wound, with the boy close enough to be sprayed by the victim’s spittle and drenched in his blood. But he could see it weren’t no use. Soon the screaming stopped and the man’s eyes closed. Tommy Trimstone was his name; from Ilfracombe in Devon, and now dead.

      The boy stood up from the corpse, wiping his hands on his breeches. He’d never seen death and didn’t know what to make of it. He looked to his captain again, cussing and blinding as no Quaker should, and then finally raising a telescope to check on their pursuers, before calling to the boy.

      “Come here, you young sod!” he cried. “Take this bastard glass and get into the bastard top, and keep watch on that bugger –” he pointed to the oncoming ship – “and be quick about it, or I’ll skin the bleeding arse off you!” With all hands on deck, standing by to man his guns, Higgs needed a lookout.

      The boy went up the shrouds at the run, and got himself nice and tight into the maintop. He levelled the glass…

      “What d’you see?” yelled Captain Higgs.

      The boy saw a sharp-keeled, rake-masted brig of some two hundred tons: deeply sparred, and with ports for twenty guns. The wind was weak so she was under all sail, and coming on only slowly, but her decks were black with armed men, which was not surprising for a vessel that flew the skull and bones.

      Boom! Up went another cloud of white from the enemy’s bow, followed swiftly by the deadly howl of shot heading their way. It shrieked high over the masts as the boy called down to the quarterdeck, telling what he’d seen.

      “You heard that,” said Higgs to Banbury. “We must defend ourselves!”

      “Can we not outrun them?” said Banbury. “You have three masts to their two!”

      Higgs sneered from the depth of his seaman’s soul at this ludicrous dollop of landlubber’s shite. Isabelle Bligh was a Bristol-built West Indiaman: well found, and fit in all respects for sea. But she was designed for cargo, not swiftness. In her favour, however, was the fact that she bore sixteen guns and was heavily timbered, so if it came to cannonading, she might well drive off a lighter vessel that was built purely for speed. Higgs yelled this thought at Banbury, but dared not act without his word.

      Up in the top, the boy looked down, puzzled. Banbury and Higgs were Quakers that weren’t supposed to fight. But the ship had guns, like other Quaker ships, so why not use them? The boy shook his head. He didn’t know. He only knew that Banbury was a very special Quaker, come out from England to staunch the slave trade among the Pennsylvania Quakers, and now going home. Clearly Cap’n Higgs was afraid of Banbury. Perhaps it was like the Catholics with their pope?

      Boom! Another shot from the pirate’s bow-chaser. They were close enough now that the boy could see the men working the gun. Again the shot went wide, and he watched them haul in, sponge out and re-load. And then he had a nasty thought. For the first time it occurred to him – in his youth and innocence – that the pirates…might actually capture the ship! He groaned in fear of what they would do to Olivia Rose.

      Plump and luscious with shining skin and titian hair, Livvy was the only female aboard. He blushed for the things the hands said about her, behind her back. What chance would she stand if such men as them – but worse – got hold of her?

      Then another flag went up on the pirate brig: a plain, red flag. The boy didn’t know what it meant, but his mates did, down below.

      “Bugger me,” said one, “it’s the Jolly Roger!”

      “Gawd ’elp us,” said another.

      “Higgs,” demanded Banbury, “what’s that red flag?”

      “The Jolie Rouge,” said Higgs. “The ‘Pretty Red One’ of the French Buccaneers.”

      “What does it mean?”

      “It means no quarter to those that fight,” he said. “It’s death to all aboard.”

      “But only if we fight?”

      “Aye.” Higgs scowled, for he knew this gave the game to Banbury.

      Banbury heaved a sigh of relief as if a tremendous burden had just fallen away, relieving him of the agonising balancing act between principle and expediency. For he was a merchant as well as a Quaker, and wasn’t quite so firm against fighting as he’d said. The truth was that he had his reputation to consider, having risen high within the Society of Friends, for he was clerk to The Meeting for Sufferings of the London Quakers, which was as near to a governing body as their prayerful egalitarianism permitted, and thus his actions would be closely examined upon his return by rivals ever-eager to take his place.

      “Strike your colours, Captain,” he said, “and pray for deliverance!”

      

      The boy saw everything. Isabelle Bligh lowered her ensign and backed her topsail in surrender. The pirates cheered and came alongside in a squealing of blocks and a rumble of canvas, taking in sail and heaving grapnels over the side to bind the ships together. Then they were swarming aboard, fifty strong and heavily armed, as the two vessels rolled under the rumble of boots on timber.

      The boy didn’t understand their speech, which seemed to be French. But they yelled merrily and a man with a feathered hat and a bandolier of many pistols embraced Captain Higgs and kissed him on both cheeks for a good fellow, while his men herded the crew for’ard. Then the boy gulped as Sam Collis, biggest man aboard, took exception and started shouting…and they shot him dead! It was ruthless, merciless and hideous. Bang! Bang! Two puffs of smoke, and a decent seaman went down and was kicked aside like a piece of rubbish.

      Isabelle Bligh’s people groaned in horror, but they were pushed to the fo’c’sle with the pirate captain – he of the feathered hat – yelling at them in English: “Your lives are yours, messieurs! Be good and make no fight, and you shall have your ship when we are done with her!”

      “Aye!” cried Mr ‘Meeting for Sufferings’ Banbury. “It is loot they seek, not blood!” And he joined in, shoving Captain Higgs and the rest for’ard as if he were one of the pirate’s own band, and agreeing with every word the villain spoke. The boy frowned heavily.

      “Bleedin’ traitor!” he muttered.

      And then the pirates got down to the serious business