Greenbeard. Richard James Bentley

not to be trifled with in a blithesome or nonchalant fashion.”

      “You hits upon my meaning straight off, Peter,” said Captain Greybagges. “Keep yez the pistol to think upon it. If we raids the Colonial fellows we must be well prepared, and will need inside information and a good plan to succeed. I’m sure the ship’s smith can braze a bit into the trigger-guard so’s you can get yer finger through it.”

      The Captain and Blue Peter talked idly about firearms - the difficulty of obtaining pyrites chips for wheel-locks these days, the poor quality of Spanish musket balls, the dubious superiority of Damascus-twist jezail barrels - until Israel Feet and Bulbous Bill Bucephalus arrived. The First Mate was bright red in the face and apparently incapable of speech.

      “I gave him one of Denzil’s peppers. The new ones what looks like a little Scotsman’s hat. Them peppers is awful hot,” said Bulbous Bill. “I warned him, but he just said ‘Har! Har!’ an’ et it whole.”

      Israel Feet filled a mug with ale and drank it all, then drank another. His face became less red and his eyes less bugged. “Arrrrgh!” he said in a hoarse voice. Tears streamed down his face. Captain Greybagges called to the serving-maid to bring another jug of ale. The buccaneers watched Israel Feet as he slowly downed yet another pint of ale, wiped his eyes and blew his nose on a cotton handkerchief and said “Arrrrgh!” several times more.

      “Izzie, me ole fighting-cock, we all knows that ye be a hairy-arsed matelot and as hard as a Chinese riddle,” said Captain Greybagges kindly, “so yez don’t need to prove it, especially by fighting with vegetables.” Blue Peter and Bulbous Bill chuckled and Israel Feet looked daggers at them through still-teary eyes.

      “Well, Izzie cannot speak yet, but he can listen,” said Bulbous Bill, “so perhaps I might tell yez what the man Denzil had to say, though it be not great good news.”

      Blue Peter got up and checked the taproom and front bar for potential eavesdroppers and sat back down, nodding for Bulbous Bill to continue.

      “The man Denzil has spoke with his brujo pal,” Bulbous Bill said in a low voice, his fellow-buccaneers leaning forward to listen. “It would seem that them sorcerers are just as fond o’ a golden coin as anybody else, so he was willin’ to pass along anything he might hear. Trouble is, he’s only heard of a fleet carryin’ crockery. Seems to me that crockery is hardly worth our effort to plunder, but yez may think otherwise.”

      “Hmm, crockery,” mused Blue Peter. “It has a ready market, that cannot be denied. It is not of great intrinsic value, though, even if it is fine porcelain from far Cathay, embellished with blue-painted scenes of that mysterious land. Bulky and breakable, too. Not the easiest of loot to plunder and transport.”

      “Tell me, Bill,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges slowly, “did your friend Denzil actually say ‘crockery’? Did he use that precise word?”

      “Why, no, Cap’n,” said Bulbous Bill. “He said it were plates.”

      Captain Greybagges looked at Bulbous Bill for several seconds, then he began to laugh. He laughed until his face turned red, he laughed until he had a coughing fit and Blue Peter had to pound him on the back. His three lieutenants stared at him in amazement. At last he gained control of himself, blowing his nose on a black silk handkerchief pulled from his sleeve. He shook his head, still grinning, and put a finger to his lips.

      “Oh, Bill! But you are a caution, and no mistake!” He gestured for them to lean closer to him and whispered “It is surely the Spanish Plate Fleet. Plate meaning silver, from the Spanish plata. Oh, my! This is a great good fortune indeed!”

      The Captain’s three lieutenants stared at him open-mouthed, then, as the meaning of his words came clear to them, their open mouths curved into great smiles. Great wolfish piratical smiles.

      “Oh deary me!” whispered Blue Peter, “I am ashamed that I did not spot that. Plate, of course, from the Spanish plata, meaning silver, from the Greek plato, meaning wide. Obvious when one sees it.”

      “How come wide gets to mean silver? Look’ee.” said Israel Feet in a hoarse voice, his throat still burning from the pepper.

      “It is because the minting of coins involves taking little lumps of silver and bashing them flat with a hammer. Thus they are made wide, and the word has come to mean all silver in Spanish when once it meant just coinage.” said Blue Peter. “The silver of the Plate Fleet will be mainly in ingots, though, each one weighing sixteen and one-half pounds. I’ve seen them before, and they are a very cheery sight to a gentleman of fortune, a very cheery sight indeed. The Spanish Plate Fleet sails once a year and takes the whole year’s production of silver from the Spanish Americas to King Carlos’s treasurehouse in Bilbao. That is a large quantity of silver by any standards.”

      The four freebooters considered this in silence for several minutes, occasionally sipping their mugs of ale and staring into space.

      “Tell me, Bill,” said Captain Greybagges at last, “did your pal tell you the times of the sailin’ and the routes that the fleet may take?”

      “Nope, but he did say that the fleet will be anchorin’ overnight in Nombre Dios Bay on the third of next month.”

      The Captain favoured Bulbous Bill with a smile and a nod. He reached inside his black coat and brought out a small book. A Jolly Roger and the words Ye Lett’s Pirate’s Diary were tooled in gold on its black leather binding. Captain Greybagges thumbed through the diary.

      “Well, shiver me timbers, here is luck!” he exclaimed. “That night is a night of no moon. It’s just before the autumn storms, too, so there’s a good chance there will be an overcast sky. A moonless clouded night, and the silver fleet will be anchored over the bones of Sir Francis Drake, who was buried at sea in Nombre Dios Bay, stitched into his hammock betwixt two cannonballs, it is said. These are indeed good omens, me hearties!”

      The buccaneers sat back and grinned at each other, the prospect of plundering a vast pile of silver bars warming their piratical hearts like pints of hot rum-toddy.

      “Let us enjoy this moment,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, “but let us not become complaisant. The treasure is vast, but it is not yet in our hands, shipmates. There is much plotting and planning to do if we are to take possession of this great fortune. To be sure, the King of Spain does not really need it, he has much wealth already, and he would only waste that fine silver paying Irish mercenary soldiers to keep Flanders in the Catholic faith. The quickest way of turning the Dutch Protestant is to tell them they must be Catholic, of course, but I wander from my point. The Plate Fleet will be at anchor in a secluded bay on the darkest of nights, thinking themselves safe because nobody knows that they are there. By careful planning we can take each ship in turn by stealth alone, and thus we need involve nobody else. We shall need no partners to ensure the success of this venture. No partners to share the booty. No partners to gossip and yakkity-yak, either, and that is important. The only ones who knows about this are us four - Bill’s mate Denzil and his witch-doctor both thinks the fleet carries crockery - so let us keep it strictly to ourselves until we are at sea. Look miserable, too. No grinning, no laughing, no dancing of jigs. Keep our good fortune hidden to yourselves alone until we are at sea again. If we does this venture right then we are in clover. Blue Peter will be able to raid the slave-masters of Virginny and Kentuck until he is satisfied that they are contrite, and pay for the expeditions out of his small change without thought of profit.”

      “You jest, Captain, because you have never endured the pain and humiliation of slavery. I may very well do just what you suggest solely for the sheer vengeful joy of it,” said Blue Peter, a wicked smile revealing his pointed teeth.

      “As I say, Peter, we must first take possession of this great bounty. That must be foremost in our minds from now on. If we thinks too much of the spendin’ of the loot we will not be thinking enough about the plunderin’ of it. I meself could easily waste hours thinkin’ about how a certain jumped-up Welshman’s nose will be put properly out of joint, but I will forego that pleasure until the silver bars are safe in my hands. Well,