Chapter 9
Billy was sitting cross-legged on the deck, intent on mending rope-ends. They were five days out of Jamaica, and so far there had been no sight of the white sails of the Navy. And Billy was enjoying himself - he had now climbed, once, to the topmost sails; he had been taught the tasks of a cabin boy and had taken part in his first gun-drill as powder monkey; he was becoming used to helping the cook and waiting on Jack Sparrow when the captain chose to dine in his cabin.
He cut the end of the piece of cord he was winding around the rope, and examined his handiwork carefully.
"Looks good," came a voice from above, and Piper sat down by his side. "Maybe the captain was right - maybe you are supposed to be a sailor."
"Maybe," said Billy, picking up the next bit of rope.
"But I think your parents will be looking for you," Piper pursued.
Billy nodded.
The doctor sighed. "Billy, why did you choose to come aboard the Black Pearl?"
"I liked it," Billy said. "And I like Captain Sparrow."
"But …" Piper leaned over, "you've run away to sea, on a pirate ship. That's a serious thing to do, Billy."
"The captain ran away when he was my age," Billy countered. "I'm old enough, sir."
"I'm not saying you're not old enough," Piper said. "I know many lads your age work hard at a trade. Many aren't as lucky as you, though. They don't all have parents that love them, and grandfathers who are important men."
Billy frowned at his rope end, which was refusing to behave. "One of my grandfathers is important," he pointed out. "The other one was a pirate. And the only person who ever told me about him was Captain Sparrow. My father didn't." He unwrapped the cord and began the end again.
"You could have joined the Navy," Piper suggested. "If you wanted to go to sea."
"I want to know about my grandfather," said Billy.
Piper got to his feet, and stood for a second looking down at Billy. "Very well, then," he said. "I wish you luck, Master Turner."
He walked away, and disappeared below deck.
Hooper came up to Billy, looking after the doctor. "What did 'e want?" he asked, squatting down to examine the ropes.
"I'm not sure," said Billy. "Are these all right?"
The bo'sun gathered up the coils, and nodded.
"They're good," he said. "Nice work, lad. Now, the cook says he needs someone to peel taters, so if you'd run along t' the galley we'd all be mighty obliged."
Billy put his knife away in his pocket, and went along to the galley, where the ship's cook pointed him to a big sack of potatoes and gave him a peeling knife. As he set to work, he considered Piper's words.
It was true that he found himself missing his parents, but less than he had feared. He missed the little touches they gave him - the pat on the shoulder from his father, the peck on the cheek before bed from his mother. But he was enjoying being treated as an equal member of the crew, and not as a small boy. He liked having jobs to do that were useful, and not merely learning sums or translating passages of Latin by rote.
He cut out a rotten piece of potato and tossed it accurately out of the porthole.
If he was honest with himself, Billy reflected, he was a little scared about the prospect of the first attack that he would be involved in. He had asked Sparrow when this might happen, and the captain had smiled in a particularly piratical way and said, "whenever we see the right ship, lad". But the seas were quiet, and they were beating quickly towards Porto Rico with few vessels of any size in sight.
"I need them taters today, not tomorrer," said the cook, breaking in on his thoughts.
"Sorry," Billy apologised, and set to the potatoes with renewed vigour.
The potatoes, eaten with salt pork that had been stewed, proved a good lunch, and Billy had some free time afterwards. He obtained Hooper's permission, and climbed up to the foretop to practise his knots in solitude. Now that he had ascended the rigging more than once he found himself feeling perfectly comfortable on the round platform; it had the additional advantage of being a good place to watch the blue sea passing by when knots became too dull.
He had tied five successful reef knots and six half-hitches in succession when he looked up idly at the horizon, and saw the sails. Dropping his bit of rope, he stood up to see better. There was definitely a ship, off to the port bow of the Black Pearl, with two tall masts crowded with white canvas.
Billy hung on to the shrouds, leaned over the edge of the fighting top, and yelled at the top of his voice, "Sail ho! Sail ho!"
Below him there was instantly a flurry of activity, and Gibbs's voice came back up from the poop.
"What sort o' sail?"
"Two masts!" Billy called back.
"Wait there, lad!" said Gibbs.
Billy waited, watching the other ship. Shortly, one of the pirates - a young Scot named McRobb - came climbing quickly up the rigging to join Billy on the top.
"Where is she?" McRobb asked, and Billy pointed. McRobb shaded his eyes, squinting towards the ship. "Oh, she's a bonny one," he said. "Merchant brig. Fully laden. We've struck lucky, lad."
Down on deck, McRobb reported the sighting to Gibbs, full of enthusiasm.
"I'd say she was headin' toward us," said McRobb. "Low in the water."
"Catch a glimpse of her colours?" asked Sparrow, appearing from below buckling on his sword-belt.
McRobb shook his head. "No, cap'n. She's still too far."
"We'll see soon enough," Sparrow said. "Well-spotted, Mr McRobb."
"'T'were the lad that saw her first," Gibbs said.
Sparrow turned one of his most glittering grins on Billy. "Well done, Master Turner!" he said, before raising his voice. "All right, you scallywags!" he called. "Merchant vessel, with us in a few hours. We'll sail colourless until she can't escape. We'd do to be sailin' a little faster, so let's cast loose the t'gallants, tighten up that main brace, and get some wind behind us, eh?" He turned on his heel, heading for the poop deck, and paused with a finger in the air. "Oh, and prepare the guns."
The next hours were feverishly busy. As Sparrow gave his orders, men scurried up the rigging and soon the ship had picked up speed under the extra canvas of the topgallants. Billy then spent some time following crewmembers around the gun deck as the guns were prepared to be fired - cannonballs placed close, fuses checked and ready - before helping Hooper to wake those pirates who were asleep. After that Piper enlisted him to tear up cloth for use as bandages, in case of injury. The doctor was in a dour mood and said very little as he readied his equipment.
They had closed a considerable distance on the merchant vessel by this point, and the men were on deck and armed. Sparrow had sent Billy up to the fighting top again, partly to keep an eye on the progress of the other ship and partly, he said, to keep his cabin boy "out of mischief". Marty was to act as powder-monkey for the gun-crews. Although he had put his knife in his belt, Billy found that he was not too disappointed he was out of harm's way. For the first time at least, it would be good to watch what happened.
He put Sparrow's spare telescope to his eye and peered through it at the merchant vessel. To his surprise, he saw a man on her deck looking almost straight back at him, and the crew running around in a disorganised fashion.
Billy closed the telescope and shouted down his sighting; shortly, McRobb appeared on the poop deck with a bundle of black cloth. Soon the great Jolly Roger - a grinning white skull, surmounting a cutlass crossed with a noose - was streaming out behind the Black Pearl. Billy raised the telescope again, and discovered that the merchant crew had panicked. On the brig's poop deck, two men were having an argument about something.
Below him on the deck of the Pearl, the pirates had gathered. All were armed. Grappling irons lay ready to be thrown.
The Pearl was closing now, and though the merchants seemed to be trying to steer away and escape the effort was proving useless.
"Ready the guns!" called Sparrow from his place on the poop deck. Billy heard the order relayed below to the gun deck. "Single broadside across the bows!" the captain shouted.
The cannon boomed. A shot whipped away from the Black Pearl with a puff of smoke, and landed with a splash not ten yards in front of the brig's bows.
"Grapples!" Sparrow ordered. His crew bent and picked up the coils of rope, ready to swing - but Billy had seen the merchant sailors hurrying to the halyards, and a plain white flag was being hauled up to blow out in the breeze.
"We surrender!" came a shout from the other ship. The call was followed by more activity aboard her, and soon the brig had hove to and was floating motionless.
The Black Pearl had passed her prey while the merchants were busy with sail and surrender flag, but under Sparrow's orders and the men hauling hard on the halyards and braces she swung around, came into the wind, and was soon alongside the brig. For the first time, Billy realised just how big his ship was - she dwarfed the merchant vessel, and the pirates ranged along the rail of the Pearl were looking down upon the frightened sailors on the other deck.
On an order from Sparrow, the first wave of pirates swung their grapples, catching the rail of the brig and linking the two ships. Planks were laid to cross the narrow gap, and nimbly, with the ease of long practice, the crew crossed to the merchant.
Billy, realising that there was not to be a fight, pushed the telescope in his waistband and began to climb down the rigging to the deck. However he hung back away from the activity, and watched from a safe distance as Sparrow took a coil of rope off a belaying pin, gave the sheet a firm tug to check it was secure, and swung flamboyantly across to the captive merchant.
As some of the pirates swarmed the brig, searching for valuables, the rest kept a close eye on her crew. Sparrow appeared to be deep into a one-sided conversation with the merchant captain, complete with much waving of a dagger and leaning over into the other man's space.
It did not take long to transfer several chests of goods and money over to the Black Pearl, along with all the weapons from the merchant sailors. Billy leaned against the starboard rail, looking on. Piper had come up from below at some point, evidently having decided his medical expertise was not going to be needed this time around, and was standing next to Billy.
Sparrow was the last person back aboard the Black Pearl. He ordered the planks to be removed, and the grapples cast loose. Gravely, he bowed towards the merchant brig, even as Hooper called for the sails to be set and the Pearl began to make way once more.
They left the brig floating - undamaged, unharmed, but with a dazed crew and lying considerably lighter in the water.