Then, after I don’t know how long, perhaps a quarter of an hour or so, when the screams had reached a peak, when the heartless sniggering of the deck-hands had been exhausted, and even the most pitiless man had begun to wonder if, perhaps, enough pain had been inflicted for one day, the door to the Navigation Room was thrown open and Dolzell and Trafford appeared.
Wearing a look of grim satisfaction the captain surveyed the men of our own ship, then the apprehensive faces of the other crew, before pointing and saying, “You, boy.”
He was pointing at me.
“Y-yes, sir,” I stammered.
“Into the cabin, boy, guard the captain, while we find out what his information is worth. You too.” He was pointing at somebody else. I didn’t see who, as I hurried to the front of the quarter-deck, barging against the tide of a surge towards the gunwales as men readied themselves to board the other ship.
I had the first of two shocks as I entered the Navigation Room and saw Captain Pritchard.
The cabin had a large dining-table, which had been set to one side. So too was the quartermaster’s table, on which were laid his navigation instruments, maps and chart.
In the middle of the cabin Captain Pritchard sat tied to a chair, his hands bound behind him. Lingering in the cabin was a brackish smell I couldn’t place.
Captain Pritchard’s head hung, chin on his chest. At the sound of the door he lifted it and focused bleary, pain-wracked eyes on me.
“My hands,” he croaked. “What have they done to my hands?” Before I could find out I had my second surprise, when my fellow jailer entered the room and it was none other than Blaney.
Oh shit. He pulled the door shut behind him. His eyes slid from me to the wounded Captain Pritchard and back to me again.
From outside came the cries of our crew as they prepared to board the other ship but it felt as though we were cut off from it, as though it were happening far away and involved people not known to us. I held Blaney’s gaze as I walked around to the back of the captain, where his hands were tied behind his back. I realized what the smell had been. It was the smell of burnt flesh.
EIGHTEEN
Dolzell and Trafford had pushed lit fuses between Captain Pritchard’s fingers in order to make him talk. There was a scattering of them on the boards as well as a jug of something that, when I put it to my nose, I thought was brine they’d used to pour on his wounds, to make them more painful.
His hands were blistered, charred black in some places, raw and bleeding in others, like tenderized meat.
I looked for a flask of water, still cautious of Blaney, wondering why he hadn’t moved. Why he hadn’t spoken.
He put me out of my misery.
“Well, well, well,” he rasped, “we find ourselves together.”
“Yes,” I replied drily. “Aren’t we lucky, mate?”
I saw a jug of water on the long table.
He ignored my sarcasm. “What would you be up to, exactly?”
“I’m fetching water to put on this man’s wounds.”
“Captain didn’t say nothing about tending to the prisoner’s wounds.”
“He’s in pain, man, can’t you see?”
“Don’t you talk to me like that, you little whelp,” snapped Blaney with a ferocity that chilled my blood. Still, I wasn’t going to show it. Full of bravado. Always tough on the outside.
“You sound like you’re fixing up for a fight, Blaney.”
I hoped I came across more confident than I felt.
“I maybe am at that.”
He had a brace of pistols in his belt and a cutlass at his waist, but the silver that seemed to appear in his hand, almost from nowhere, was a curved dagger.
I swallowed.
“What do you plan on doing, Blaney, with the ship about to mount a raid, and us in charge of guarding the captain here? Now, I don’t know what it is you have against me, what measure of grudge it is you’re nursing, but it’ll have to be settled another time, I’m afraid, unless you’ve got a better idea.”
When Blaney grinned a gold tooth flashed. “Oh, I’ve got other ideas, boy. An idea that maybe the captain here tried to escape and ran you through in the process. Or how about another idea altogether? An idea that it was you who helped the captain. That you untied the prisoner’s hands and tried to make good your escape, and it was me who stopped you, running you both through in the process. I think I like that idea even better. How’s about that?”
He was serious, I could tell. Blaney had been biding his time. No doubt he wanted to avoid the flogging he would have received for giving me a beating but suddenly he had me where he wanted me.
Then something happened that focused me. I’d knelt to see to the captain and something caught my eye. The thick signet ring he was wearing bore a symbol I recognized.
The day I’d woken up on the Emperor I’d found a looking-glass below decks and inspected my wounds. I had cuts, bruises and scrapes. I looked like what I was: a man who’d been beaten up. One of the marks was from where I’d been punched by the man in the hood. His ring had left its imprint on my skin. A symbol of a cross.
I saw that very same symbol there, on Captain Pritchard’s ring.
Despite the poor man’s discomfort I couldn’t help myself. “What’s this?”
My voice, a little too sharp and a little too loud, was enough to arouse the suspicions of Blaney, and he pushed himself off the closed cabin door and moved further into the room to see.
“What is what?” Pritchard was saying, but by now Blaney had reached us. He too had seen the ring, only his interest in it was less to do with its meaning, more to do with its value. Without hesitation, and heedless of Pritchard’s pain, he reached and yanked it off, flaying the finger of burnt and charred skin at the same time.
The captain’s screams took some time to die down, and when they had, his head lolled forward onto his chest and a long rope of saliva dripped to the cabin floor.
“Give me that back,” I said to Blaney.
“Why should I give it to you?”
“Now come on, Blaney . . .” I started. Then we heard something, a shout from outside, “Sail ho!”
It wasn’t as though our feud was forgotten, just placed to one side for a moment. Blaney pointed his dagger and said, “Wait there,” as he left the room to see what was going on.
The open door framed a scene of sudden panic outside but as the ship lurched it slammed shut. I looked from the door to Captain Pritchard, groaning in pain. I’d never wanted to be a pirate. I was a sheep-farmer from Bristol. A man in search of adventure, it’s true, but by fair means not foul. I wasn’t a criminal, an outlaw. I’d never wanted to be party to the torture of innocent men.