The Master has brought the ship back in direct pursuit of the pirate and we draw even closer. She can't run from us now, but some of the pirates are still puttin' up a fight. I can hear the grapeshot rattlin' down the barrels.
"Same again, Mr. Greenshaw," says the Captain, and again the Dolphin swings to port. I watches the Captain and wait.
"Fire!" says the Captain, and again I hit the drum and again the guns shout out their terrible bark. The powder smoke whips back across the deck, stingin' me eyes. I sees the pirate has downed men all over its decks. We're drawing closer and closer. I sees red comin' out of their scuppers. Dear God.
Then there's a splinterin' crash and I'm up in the air and flat on me back and knocked most out of me senses. The Dolphin shudders. Then there's another blast. There's smoke and screamin' and cryin' from down below. The pirate's guns have fired point-blank into our side.
In spite of her injuries the ship pulls up beside the corsair. There's another horrible crash as the pirate gets another broadside into us. Such awful screaming.
"Man the Boarding Party to starboard," yells the Captain. "Get the nets across! All hands to the Boarding Party!"
I gets to my feet and stumbles down the ladder, numb with terror. Got to find Jaimy.
The men are grabbing cutlasses from the rack. The nets and hooks are already across to the pirate. Our Marines are up in the rigging, firing down at the pirates below, keeping them away from the netting. I sees Jaimy up at the front of the mob by the rail, waiting for the order, cutlass in hand. The men are howling like demons. I grabs a cutlass and it's heavy in me hand and I knows I'll never use it but...
Jaimy, you fool, I want to shout. Wait! You're only a boy! Let the others do it!
"Away the Boarding Party!"
Jaimy is the first one across the net and I sobs and blindly follows across, tryin' to hold me water and knowin' I ain't gonna be able to, and now I've lost sight of Jaimy and I slips on the deck and falls down 'cause it's covered with blood and there are dead men everywhere and I gets up all smeared with blood and where's Jaimy and there he is headin' aft and I heads off after him but slips again in the slick blood and falls over a pirate lyin' there without a face but with two primed and cocked pistols in his belt so I drops me cutlass and pulls one out and goes after Jaimy again.
I comes round the after cabin and there he is, lookin' confused, like he don't know what to do, and then next to me the cabin door flies open and this pirate comes out with a chest under his arm and a great curved sword in his fist and he heads for the side but Jaimy is in his path and Jaimy doesn't see him and the pirate raises his sword above his head.
"Jaimy!" I screams and Jaimy turns to see his doom and I raises the pistol in both hands and pulls the trigger and the gun bucks in me hands and smoke flies in me face and then the pirate ain't doin' nothin' but kneelin' there bleedin' through a hole in his chest, his life runnin' out of him. Jaimy looks at the pirate and then at me, all stunned.
The pirate drops the chest and it falls to the deck and pops open and gold coins spill out and across the deck, and Mr. Lawrence is there beside me and some other of our men and they scoop up the gold pieces and when they're doin' that, Bliffil comes up from behind the bulkhead where he's been hidin' and sinks his sword into the still kneelin' pirate. The pirate topples over and Bliffil raises his now bloody sword in a great show and howls in triumph. I don't think Mr. Lawrence saw what Bliffil did, but I seen what Bliffil did, and he knows I seen it.
All the pirates are now dead or gone and I turns to go back to the ship. The ships have been made fast together so it's easy to get across this time. Before I go over, I am sick and throws up. I walks on and everythin's all bright and clear but not real somehow.
The men are putting the cutlasses back in the rack. They looks at me walking up, the pistol still in me hand and the blood on me face and arms and hands and on me clothes gettin' all stiff and turnin' brown, and I sees them as if all twinkly and jerky and slow. Real slow. Bloody Jack, I hears someone mutter. The Master-at-Arms takes the pistol from my hand, almost gently, and I turns and walks down the passageway. Men are washing the bloody deck with hoses and buckets but I hardly sees 'em, and the reddish foam swirls around my ankles and runs out the scuppers but I hardly feels it. In my dream I hear that many of our men are injured and four of them are dead. It's Martin and Dobbs and Mr. Leigh, the Midshipman in charge of number-six gun, and Benjy.
Benjy's dead, too.
I walk by the number-six gun and there he is, pinned to the wall with a jagged splinter in his chest, his own heart's blood spilled down over his shirt. A man bends down and yanks out the splinter and Benjy slips down to the deck like a little rag doll.
I do not scream. I do not cry. I only turns and walks on, down, down to my deepest hidey-hole where I lies down in the dark and pulls my knees to my chin.
Bloody Jack.
Chapter 17
It falls to a sailor's mates to sew him up in his hammock when he's dead and put the cannonball in to make him sink, and since I'm the one handy with the needle, I'm the one what sews Benjy up in a piece of canvas, him being too small for a hammock and him not having one, anyway, while the others stand around crying and grieving. Jaimy goes and gets the ball from the number-six gun and we puts it at Benjy's feet and I sew the canvas up toward his poor face. His eyes are half open and so's his mouth, and I can't stand the thought of him being down in the dark depths with his mouth open, so I sends Tink to get a length of light line and we binds Benjy up so his mouth is closed. Before I sew the canvas all the way up, I reach in and close his eyes with my fingertips. Then I do up the last few stitches and we see Benjy's face no more.
The bodies are laid on boards, which have one end on the ship's rail and the other end held up by the man's friends. The Captain and his officers and all the men not on watch or in sick bay are standing by with their hats in their hands. As the Deacon says the words over each man in turn, the board is lifted and the body slides off the board and into the water.
Benjy is the last. The Deacon lifts his hand in benediction.
"Benjamin Hanks, we commit your body to the sea and your soul to God. Amen."
We lift our end of the board, and all that's left of our mate Benjy slips off into the sea.
It's a cowed and quieted group of ship's boys that meets in the foretop in the coming days, as the Brotherhood mourns the loss of one of its own. There are no more boyish slashings of swords, no more grand boasts, no more dreams of glory. No jokes and japes out of Davy. Tink and Willy, too, just sit about and mope. Jaimy is all gloom as well, and I'm thinking it ain't all about Benjy—he's thinking about the fight, too, and he ain't happy with how he did in it. As for me, I'm the most quiet and mopey of all, not only 'cause I can't get Benjy out of my mind, but also 'cause I'm the only one of us who's actually killed someone, and that weighs heavy on me, too. That, and my bleeding has started again. Perhaps soon I'll be down with Benjy as payment for my deeds.
I get next to Liam a lot in the days after Benjy's death. I say to myself that it's to practice my seamanship and my whistle, but it's really just to be with him as his very presence gives me much comfort. Liam lets me carry on in my sad state all weepy and glum for some days, but then he starts to give me little nudges in the ribs and flicking up my nose with his finger and saying, "Stiff upper lip, Jack," and I push his hand away and glare all stormy at him. He shakes his head.
"Jacky. You've got to let them go after a while, you know. You grieve for your mates what have passed on for a decent time and then you have to let them be."
"I know," I whimpers, "but..."
"But, nothing. You've got to think of the fine times you had with your mate, not the moment of his perishin'. Every tear you shed now only wets his windin' sheet and disturbs his rest."
I poke my head into Liam's shoulder and then let it rest there for a bit, looking out across the rolling sea and the puffy white clouds scudding along the horizon. Then I head off for the foretop. He's right. I'll let Benjy go. I'll let them all go.
The Brotherhood gathers in a circle and offers up a prayer for Benjy every day for a week after his death, then once every Sunday. It's the best we can do. It's the way of the man-of-war's man, as Liam says, and it has to be that way.
On my pennywhistle I make up a slow, mournful tune, and I call it "The Ship's Boy's Lament." Liam allows that it is very good and that I should teach it to other players as I travel the world, and because of that Benjy will always be remembered, sort of. We are on our way into legend and song.
The repairs on the pirate ship are done, and the Dolphin is patched up as best as the ship's carpenter can manage. The former pirate is manned with a small crew, Mr. Lawrence commanding. I know it is a feather in his cap, and I wish him the joy of it as he seems a decent sort, for an officer. The word is that in recounting the action on the deck of the pirate to the Captain, he gave me credit for capturing the no money box when he could have taken that honor for himself. Not that I wanted credit for any of that. Money was the last thing on my mind at the time. At least Bliffil didn't capture any glory with his sham of bravery.
Midshipman Bliffil is part of the prize crew and I am glad to have him off the ship, if only for a short time. The mood in the midshipmen's berth lightens considerably, and we boys venture in there for the first time. We tell them how sorry we are about Mr. Leigh, and we hang about and look at their stuff. The middies ain't really so bad—the younger ones are just boys like us. Mr. Jenkins's got a real flute, the kind you play from the side. He shows me how to blow across the hole to make the sound, but I ain't very good at it.
The morale of the ship is high, for we are officially heading into port to sell the prize, make repairs, and take on water. And have our first liberty call, with money in our pockets. We are going to a place called Palma, which sounds wondrously exotic.
So, in spite of ourselves, our boyish high spirits steadily return.
We feel guilty about it, but there you are.
Chapter 18
We're all in a line at the head of the ladder leading down the side of the ship, all the boys decked out in their spanking new uniforms, and I can't stand it, I'm just about to bust with pride seeing how splendid they look. The Captain and the officers are there beside us, too, waiting for the Admiral to come aboard for a meeting with the Captain, and the noble Dolphin is all bedecked with flags and buntings and sailors in their best uniforms manning the rails and the tops. We ain't the only King's ship in the harbor, there's the Endeavor and the Surprise and some others I can't make out from here. Merchant ships, too.
The Bo'sun is at the end of the line of us boys, looking over the side for the coming of the Admiral's gig, his pipe in hand. It's a whistle with just one hole in a bulb on the end that he puts his hand over when he blows it to make it warble. He has drilled us over the past week about how we're supposed to stand and what we're supposed to do when he sounds his whistle, and a slow and painful death has been promised us if we mess it up.
The Captain is pacing around, all covered in blue and gold, and he looks us over and seems to approve, but he looks at me the longest. I stare straight ahead as instructed, not meeting his eyes. Please don't say anything about the battle, Sir, I prays. J am not what I seemed to be.