Pirate Blood

“The weather is on our side”, the old man stated, hearing a faraway thunder, followed by the rain pouring down a bit later. “There will be nobody to bother us and the ground will be softer and easier to dig.”

So they decided to go.

The Portuguese was going to cover the boy till he came back; if Anne suspected them, that would be the end of it all.

“Be careful”, he whispered. “For God’s sake.”

They didn’t meet anyone, as the old man had foreseen. Johnny was happy about it. The idea of being discovered was making him nervous.

They passed by a row of houses till they went down a deserted street. The last part of it made a sudden bent to the left; they could see the cemetery on the other side, beyond a stream crossed by a bridge.

“The time of truth has come”, Avery said, walking stoically over the bridge. “Hurry up! We’ve got a job to do.”

An iron fence stood in front of them, bounding the cemetery borders. The gate had been broken, so they could go in easily. Some rough wooden crosses were standing along a path winding to a chapel, which had been built in the austere style which made the colons famous.

Avery pointed his finger at the building. “We must get inside.”

“Pirates are usually thrown into common graves”, the boy stated in a whisper.

“You’re right, but I have something to do before.”

They got to the small temple. A Latin sentence had been cut above the door. Johnny stopped for a moment, sheltering his forehead from the rain and trying to understand those words. The old man interrupted him, asking Johnny to follow him. The door gave a hellish creaking and they walked on in absolute darkness. After a while, a flame burst through the dark.

“Hold this one, brat.” Avery handed a torch to him. He put the lighter and the firestone back, then he leant over some piled up coffins. He took out a sheet made of sail cloth. “I brought all the tools we need to dig. I knew they would be safe here.”

Johnny saw two barrels coming out of the sheet. “The only problem will be finding the pirate’s grave out.”

“Don’t worry. The governor wanted the dead man to be buried in a single grave. I could find it almost at once.”

“I didn’t know he was so generous.”

The other man shook his head and loaded the bulky tools on his shoulders. “He did it just to show himself merciful, after what had happened. What’s more, he wanted to save his face. There is nothing generous in it.”

After they had gone out, they walked through a scanty wood standing close to the chapel. The air seemed made of lead while they walked among the tangled branches and roots; it was heavy, loaded with gloomy omens. A bit farther, the ground slightly sloped down and the green disappeared. The crosses had disappeared too, giving place to some simple tombstones planted on the ground.

“There it is!” Avery suddenly stopped, pointing at a grave not far from them.

They started fumbling about it, without wasting any more time talking. It was a hard job; the ground was a cold and granular mud and they got stuck into the mire till ankle length. The digging work took a very long time. After a while, Avery had to stop. He was panting hard.

“Go on”, he said, sitting down on the muddy edge of the grave.

The boy went on. The more he drove the spade into the ground, the more his heart beat fast. After a while, his hands started hurting too. He tried not to give up. That absurd excitement he was feeling, was pushing him to go on. Then he stopped. The spade wasn’t digging the ground anymore. It was making a rasping sound, like claws scratching greedily underground. That image made him freeze: what if the dead man came out of his grave and dragged Johnny away with him?

“I’m going on now”, Avery said providentially. He took out from under the sheet a tool looking like a metal pole. One of its ends was sharp and slightly bending.

Johnny couldn’t ask for more and climbed out of the grave, sitting down on its edge, next to the torch stuck into the ground to light the place: the wet wood was going to burn just for a short time more. They had to hurry up.

The old man went down again, being careful not to slip. When he got to the bottom, he turned the ground over, till the rough boards of the coffin came out. He bent down, testing their thickness by his fingertips. He was probably weighing the question up, or paying Wynne homage. When he looked satisfied, he opened his legs wide, drove his boots on both sides of the grave and stuck the pole between the boards, then he started undermining them. The cracking wood made a horrible sound: it was like the noise of broken bones. The cover was torn up bit by bit, till the corpse came out.

He was stiff, lying in the coffin, his arms were pressing his hips and his neck was bending. His long hair was dirty with mud and came down in a shapeless pulp, covering a side of his face. His skin was drawn like old paper, his muscles and sinews stood out from underneath. His fingers were true claws.

When Johnny saw them, he felt a new sense of terror. They were the same he might have heard while he was digging. He was still thinking about that noise, when he had to turn his head the other side. An unbearable stench overwhelmed him, the unmistakable acid smell of putrefaction. He tried hard not to throw out: his intestine was in a mess, as if someone was stirring it by a stick.

Avery gave a start as well. He lifted his collar to protect his face.

“How are you doing, my friend?”, he asked after a while, turning to Wynne. His voice was nasal, almost funny in such a context.

As an answer, the pirate’s jaw started to move in the middle of his ruffled hair, as if he was trying hard to speak.

Johnny opened his eyes wide. Oh my God! He is still alive…

No sound came out of his mouth, but a rat did instead. At first its tail peeped out, then the jaw opened in a wide yawn and the animal walked back on his small paws. It took some steps back, heedless of the human beings. It darted its black eyes around, clearly stunned and annoyed since he had to leave its den, then he disappeared into a hole at the bottom of the coffin, were the wood had got rotten.

The old man didn’t bat an eye. That wasn’t the same for Johnny.

“What are we going to do?”, he asked. The small stick into his belly had turned into a beam. He feared that Avery would ask him to get back there.

On the contrary, he kept silent, rubbing his hand on his rough chin and wondering. His grey wisps had fallen by the sides of his face and the rain was streaming down his bold head.

“Give me the torch, before it goes out”, he suddenly ordered.

Johnny did what he was asking him. He could see Avery catching the dead man by his hair and shaking him violently: the head changed its angle and gave out a series of creaking sounds, even if the neck hadn’t broken. His face kept sneering, his wide open and distorted mouth, where the mouse had come out from, was like a very deep well. Since the tongue was missing, the rodent had been able to hole up there untroubled. All around his livid lips, marks of clotted blood could still be seen.

“Come here”, Avery ordered. He drove the torch into the ground. The yellowish halo of the fading light was casting its shade against a side of the grave, reducing it to a vague half-moon shape.

Johnny went down again, unwillingly. He lost sight of the corpse for a moment: Avery was bending forward so much that he was blocking his view. He seemed to be bustling about something. He finally let his grip and Wynne fell back heavily into the coffin.

“So?”, the boy inquired.

The old man turned to look at him, his hand open and trembling. He was still holding some greasy locks between his fingers. The pirate’s artificial eye was standing out against his wrinkled skin. It was an almost perfect sphere, except for a slight notch on one side. It seemed to be staring at him with chained hatred.

Then Avery waved his hand near the torch, letting the light pass through it. A greenish glare was shining inside the eyeball. It seemed just a faint light at first, but it was flaring up like a small incandescent sun under the flame’s warmth.

“Oh my God!”, Johnny burst out, opening his mouth wide in amazement.

“What did I tell you?”, Avery claimed. He then moved his lips, keeping talking, but Johnny couldn’t hear the words which followed.

Without any notice, a deafening rumble burst out near the bay, followed by a column of fire, which rose in the sky like a giant octopus’s tentacle. Screams of dismay and terror stared echoing there in a short while.

CHAPTER FOUR
BLACKBEARD

When the explosion took place, Rogers was sleeping.

After his meeting with the governor, he had spent the rest of the evening shut into his cabin. He had lain down on the hammock, following with his eyes the hypnotic swinging of the lantern hanging over his head, pushed by the backwash which was making the ship roll. He had slowly fallen asleep, lulled by the rain pattering against the glass. As soon as the uproar woke him up, he opened his eyes wide and jumped to his feet, just in time to see the door of his cabin being thrown open.

Husani was on the threshold and he was panting.

“Captain!”, he burst out, dripping with sweat. “We are under attack!”

“Under attack?”, he repeated.

“A vessel has come into sight, out at sea. Then a boom coming from Fort Charles. The flames are everywhere.”

“What kind of vessel?”

The black giant hesitated. “Black sails, captain. I’m not sure but… but it looks like, well…”

“Speak out!”, the corsair burst out, fixing his shirt better into his leotard. “Are you going to make me waste more time?”

In spite of the huge difference in their built, Husani took some steps back, clearly frightened by that violent and sudden reaction. “Well… I fear… it might be the Queen Anne’s Revenge.”

As if he had the Devil on his back, Rogers grasped his boots and rushed barefooted out of the cabin. He went on the deck, where the rest of the crew was swarming everywhere like a crowd of crazy ants. O’Hara moved towards him and tried to ask him what was happening. Rogers ignored him: he leant out at starboard, the side of the ship overlooking the bay.

What he could see, made him freeze.

A thick and oily smoke was rising from Fort Charles. The southern wall was completely enveloped in flames and was threatening to crumble down. The cannons were out of use, destroyed or useless, made incandescent by the fire surrounding them. Also the central keep was starting to be licked by the flames.

“Captain!” A man was pointing at something faraway. “Over there!”

Rogers turned his eyes and started. In spite of the bad weather, the dark shape of a vessel was standing out on the black surface of the sea, a shadow among shadows. It didn’t seem to move, there wasn’t any lighted lantern which could foretell any riggings going on. The only source of light was coming from the faint glare of the moon and from the gun-ports between the upper deck and the lower ones. He didn’t need to count them: he knew that the Queen Anne’s Revenge had forty gun-ports on each side. A huge number, considering that the Delicia had just a half of them.

“Teach”, he gritted his teeth and brushed his hand on his disfigured face.

Some more booms followed.

The cannon balls were whistling in the wind, detonating near the coast. Some of them fell into the water, raising high splashes into the sky. Then a fleeting silence fell, followed by a new broadside, near the fortress this time.

They’re fixing the target, Rogers thought.

“Hurry up!”, he shouted soon after. “Bring me the spyglass.”

A mariner appeared behind him, bringing the tool. Rogers pulled it away from him and started scanning the horizon. If the cannons hadn’t been there, he could have believed the ship was deserted. He could see small shapes on the deck, coming and going like ghosts, following the glare of lightning. He searched from stern to bow: there was no sign of Blackbeard. He was assailed by doubts. He turned the spyglass down and saw several wakes on the water, indicating the passage of some launches.

There they were, moving silently and pointing to the east side of the fortress, where the coast was low and sandy, and closer to the town.

“Let the launches down”, he ordered, rushing to port. “Hurry up, silly idiots!”

A cannon ball brushed against the Delicia, crashing against a rocky wall nearby. A great cloud of dust spread all around, while the air itself seemed to vibrate.

They are moving, Rogers understood, horrified. They want to block the inlet and shoot at the wet dock.

“Your orders, captain!”, a mariner shouted.

“I’ve told you to let the launches down”, he insisted.

“They are firing at us”, another man replied.

“We’ll be safer here.” Rogers wasn’t used to being scared, but he changed his mind at that moment. “If we set sail, they would tear us to pieces. The entrance is too tight for escape riggings.”

A sudden bustle started to excite the ship. The launches were slipped outboard. The corsair put his boots on and jumped into the first one, giving orders on all sides. O’Hara was with him.

“Listen to me”, he told Husani, who was still on the deck, “hoist the sail, but keep the anchor at sea. We must be ready to chase the Queen Anne’s Revenge, if we need to.”

The African nodded.

The launches moved away very quickly. Rogers was sitting at bow and was stirring up the rowers to make the boat move as fast as possible.

“Why do you think he has come here?”, O’Hara suddenly asked him.

“Teach would never attack Port Royal”, he answered. “It’s too dangerous.” He hesitated for a moment, while his thoughts were overlapping each other frantically. “There must be a reason why he has bothered to come here. He might have learnt about Wynne.”

The launches bordered the small plot of land where the fortress stood. The bay made an acute angle there, covered with sharp rocks.

“Head over there”, Rogers ordered.

“We’ll risk to crash into the rocks, captain”, one of the rowers objected. “The stream is too strong. It’s going to drag us away.”

“That’s exactly what I mean. We are going to take advantage of the stream to gain speed and land over there.” He pointed at the coast by his finger. “We are going through the docks. Blackbeard’s launches must be already there. We can’t waste any more time.”

“What are we going to do after we have landed?”, O’Hara inquired.

“Find that bastard and return the favour.” Rogers touched his web of scars once more. A strange smile was spreading on his face.

As Rogers had ordered, the launches turned their bow to the settled place. The crew was jolted about by the stream, but the rowers were able to keep the balance. The bullets kept whizzing around them. The fortress was helpless, at the mercy of the enemy’s fire: a rampart edge was hit and it smashed to smithereens. Then it was the keep’s turn. It burst out in a storm of stones, and some of the debris fell into the sea.

“They’re going to kill us!”, O’Hara shouted.

Rogers was too absorbed and he couldn’t hear him. He had no more doubts: the Queen Anne’s Revenge was just a lure. Thanks to its covering fire, Blackbeard’s pirates would be able to act undisturbed. But what for?

“Watch out!”, a rower thundered.

A new broadside had stricken Fort Charles. A part of the battlements crumbled down, rolling on its own axis. It crashed into one of the launches, breaking it in two, while the mariners on board disappeared underwater, dragged away by the stream.

An icy silence fell on the mariners, only marked by the noise of explosions and shouts. When they got to the inlet, they landed. The sight which appeared before their eyes was terrifying and disarming: people were rushing to the docks, looking for shelter among the ships laying at anchor. The soldiers were trying helplessly to stop them: some of them were assaulted and pushed into the water. The area of the port next to the fortress was on fire.

“To arms”, Rogers unsheathed his sword. “They are probably going to kidnap the governor.” He looked around, heading to a small alley nearby. He wanted to get to the residence as soon as possible. “Come here!”

They ran through the twisted streets in the harbour. They could see everywhere crowds of desperate people trying to run away. The soldiers were panic-stricken as well: they probably weren’t expecting such an organized and violent assault.

When they got to a crossroads, they found themselves in a widening, made marshy by the rain. The church stood just a few steps from them: it was an austere building, totally made of wood. If the fire got there, the flames would reach the surrounding area, eating the town up in a few hours. Nonetheless, that wasn’t the only thing which troubled Rogers. He waved his men to find shelter behind the corner of a house.

“What’s happening, captain?”, a man of the crew inquired.

“Look over there”, he answered and pointed forwards.

The door of the church was wide open. A band of men was swarming out. They were brandishing swords, knives, hatchets and guns. They were escorting a group of civilians and half a dozen soldiers, all unarmed.

“Any idea?”, O’Hara asked.

“They must have gone through the market”, Rogers stated. “Some of them must have stayed back in order to sack the stores, looking for supplies. Fighting them face-to-face is too dangerous. We could be encircled. Let’s wait and see what happens.”

Some pirates were watching the prisoners carelessly; some others, instead, were nudging at each other, pointing at the prisoners and smiling. They forced them to kneel down, in the middle of the square. A guy came out of the squad: he was so short that he looked like a dwarf.

“Bring him outside!”, he shouted.

Someone moaned with pain inside. A man in cassock was dragged out. Rogers had never met him, but he knew that father Mckenzie was the only priest in the colony, the one who had heard Wynne’s confession before the execution.

“If you don’t speak, we will be forced to hurt this flock of lost sheep.” The small man started walking nervously on his short and squat legs. “A highly moralistic man like you won’t let it happen, will you?”

The pirates burst out laughing.

“So”, he went on, “why don’t you tell us what Emanuel Wynne said in confession? A man who is going to die must have lots of things to say.”

“I’ve already told you…”, Mckenzie tried to utter.

Someone fired and one of the soldiers rolled over himself, falling flat on his face into a pool. A side of his head had disappeared. In its place, a bloody mass of cerebral matter was pulsing.

“Just a warning”, the dwarf acknowledged, with some satisfaction. “My patience has worn thin.”

“He was crazy!”, the priest barked, going into hysterics. “For God’s sake, stop it!”

The short man didn’t pay attention to him and gathered one of his fellow mates. He mumbled something.

The other pirate nodded and got closer to the prisoners. He started wandering among them, till he found a child, hugging his mother’s neck. A greedy smile spread on his face. He caught him, kicking the woman.

The dwarf limped towards them and tugged at the young boy. He was just a bit taller than him. “Thanks to your stubbornness, you are going to be responsible for an innocent’s death, father. Are you ready to carry such a burden? What is your conscience suggesting you to do?”

“Stop it, Crook!”

That sudden order, like a bomb bursting out, made Rogers turn pale. He could feel a dismayed grip in his stomach. Every single fibre in his body was crossed by adrenalin rushes. He lowered his eyes to his hands. He was shaking.

That voice, he thought. I could identify it anywhere.

“Captain?”, O’Hara called him.

Rogers turned his attention once more to the church door, just in time to see something crossing the darkness which prevailed inside. The shadows, vibrating like hot air on a sulky day, became a shape, whose outlines were getting more and more clear-cut.

“We have our own dignity as well”, the man turning out on the threshold stated. His voice seemed to come directly from the bottom of Hell.

He was tall, well built, almost regal in his threatening look. He was wearing a long black greatcoat, fastened on his waist by a crimson sash. He had a leather band around his shoulders, where three pairs of guns were hanging from. A long and thick pitch-black beard framed his face, which was partially hidden by a cloud of smoke coming from some lit fuses under his cocked hat, which was then surmounted by a bunch of raven feathers.

Behind the smoke-screen, two cruel eyes could be made out, shining like boiling ice. He was holding a sabre in his right hand.

Blackbeard had come at last.

***

The situation was changing for the worse and Johnny could understand it when he saw the old man’s grim look: a deadly paleness had turned him into a sort of ghost, and that was highlighted by his crossed eyebrows.

Johnny couldn’t see the bay very well from where he was standing, but the faint red halo hovering over it didn’t give rise to doubts. He could feel a gloomy dread rising slowly inside himself, a dull fear.

“We must get away from here!” Avery caught him violently by his arm. “We aren’t safe anymore.”

Johnny kept staring at him doubtfully, unable to understand clearly what he was talking about: hundreds of images were fastening into his mind, a confused mess which tasted like death.

A single, never ending thought stood out among them all.

“I must go back to my mother!”, he shouted. He escaped Avery’s grip and disappeared through the trees.

He stumbled over the roots twice, risking to fall down into the mud. He found his balance again thanks to his desperation, so he could keep on his feet.

He had to run.

That was all. Run.

That was the only thing that mattered.

He passed by the chapel and went out of the cemetery, heading to the bridge. When he got half way, he hesitated for a moment. He felt lost. What was he going to do?

I can’t leave her, he told himself. That sense of loss scared him, as if he was watching it all through a distorting glass.

“Wait!”, Avery was calling him in his back.

Johnny seemed to snap out of it. He turned and saw him prodding along. He waited for him to get there, then he flung his arms around his neck and started crying. After a while, he felt him brushing his forearms.

For some moments, his eyes could just stare at the old man’s thin chest.

“Going back is too dangerous”, he told him. He was talking in a determined voice.

“Please.” The boy lifted his head, hesitating, his cheeks streaked with tears. He was moving his mouth as if he was chewing. “I must go back to her. Let me go.”

“I can’t do it.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Of course I do.”

“No, you don’t!”, the boy burst out in exasperation. His features were distorted into an angry grim, while he kept trying to get away from that grip.

“Stop it!”, Avery shouted and slapped him on his face, leaving red marks on his cheeks. Johnny opened his mouth wide, still staring at him, alternating hatred with incredulity. “If anything happened to you, I would never forgive myself for that.” His voice had changed, taking a protective tone. “I promised it to your mother.”

Johnny was going to reply, but he didn’t have enough strength to do it. That statement turned him to stone. He felt a grip in his lower belly, his heart beating faster and his limbs melting like wax.

“About two months after your father’s disappearance”, the old man went on. “She begged me to look after you, if you needed it.”

Johnny’s tears were falling faster. “Why have you never told me?”

Avery spoke in the same sweet voice. “The world isn’t a nice place, trust me. I’ve see too many things to think it differently. You aren’t ready to face it. Since I met you, I’ve seen in you a pain and a rage ready to burst out anytime. If you want to survive, you must learn to handle them.”

“How can you know what I’m feeling?”, the boy shouted. “Yours are all pretexts.”

“I’m sorry you think so.”

“So tell me, what should I do?”

Avery reached out his hand to brush his cheek, but Johnny moved back in disdain. “The time has come for you to grow up. You’ll have to…” He then knitted his brows. A deep tangle of wrinkles spread on his brown skin. He started searching through his pockets.

“What are you doing?”, Johnny inquired, trying to keep a shadow of self-control.

“Keep it safe, whatever happens”, the other man replied, letting the glass eye drop into Johnny’s hands.

“I…” The boy was astonished when he saw the light inside it, still like brackish water.

“Promise me!”, the old man exclaimed. He tried to bent his knee, his creaking joints awkwardly, to be as tall as the boy’s face. “If anything turns bad, you must hide it. When all this story gets to the end, we’ll come back and find your mother. Bart is a cool guy. I’m sure he will take care of her.”

Johnny nodded, without knowing the reason why. He was feeling as if he had been suddenly thrown into someone else’s life. His eyes were lost into the trembling greenish light. It was calling him towards itself, attracting him with hazy promises of things he couldn’t understand.

***

It stopped raining soon after.

Rogers was hardly aware of it. He was focusing his attention on Teach: the pirate was covering the distance separating him from the priest by walking slowly and rhythmically, as if he wanted to make his gait more solemn.

“Faith is full of light, father”, he stated when he got next to the man. “But there is also a darkness able to make you blind.”

“For God’s sake”, McKenzie moaned. “Have mercy.”

“Mercy is my nickname”, the pirate said ironically. “And I’m going to show you, sparing that boy’s life. As I’ve just said, we have our dignity as well.” He nodded slightly and the dwarf let the prisoner free; the boy immediately flung himself into his mother’s arms. “However, you owe me a great favour for that.”

Filthy bastard! Rogers could hardly hold back from uttering those words aloud. A new feeling of anger shot through him. Teach’s most hateful side was that: he had great fun playing very mean tricks on his victims. O’Hara caught him by his arm.

“You must keep calm”, he whispered. “We didn’t get here in order to be killed.”

The corsair agreed. Coming out into the open would lead to disastrous consequences. He would lose control of the matter and would run the risk of being wiped out by Blackbeard’s crew. He absolutely had to make a plan.

Meanwhile, Mckenzie couldn’t stop moaning. “Wynne didn’t tell me anything. That’s the truth!” The last word came out in a choked scream.

“I’m going to believe you”, Teach replied. “By the way, I don’t think you are so silly as to put all these innocent lives in danger.” He spread his arms dramatically, as if he wanted to embrace the whole crowd.

“Long live our captain!”, someone shouted, while the rest of the crew started giggling.

Then Blackbeard smiled sourly. “That’s the reason why I have decided to let all the civilians free.” He stared at them one by one enigmatically, his eyes burning behind the smoke-screen surrounding his head. “You can go.”

All the people there looked at each other in real terror. Rogers thought that the pirate might be lying. That possibility should be taken into account after all. Anything could be expected from a man like him.

Edward Teach shook his head, spoofing somehow the deceived attitude of the ones who weren’t expecting such a behaviour. He took out one of his guns and aimed at random at the prisoners.

“I’m not going to say it again”, he exclaimed.

The widening was filled with jarring sounds, neither of terror nor of gratitude. The women were screaming, the children were crying and the men were cursing, pushing each other to find an escape.

“I’ll tell you once more that we have our own dignity”, Blackbeard claimed, amused. He then turned back to McKenzie. “Look at your parishioners instead”, he said, aiming his gun at a guy. The man hadn’t avoided pushing a woman and making her fall down into the mud, in order to escape. She was asking for help, but nobody was going to rescue her. “I can’t stand coward people.”

The people’s shouts were stifled by the sound of gunfire.

The bullet hit the man almost in the middle of his back, pushing him forward for a metre. While he was falling down, he groped twice, scratching the air in search for a handhold. Teach moved closer to him and unsheathed his weapon. He was whistling. When he got over him, he ran his sabre through him.

“Here you are, God’s wrath!”, the pirate thundered.

McKenzie squeezed his eyes and turned his head down. His shoulders were moving up and down, following the irregular rhythm of his crying.

“I’m begging you, please stop it”, he gurgled. It looked like listening to someone talking with his mouth stuffed with food.

Rogers shivered. Even if he had been brought up according to very sound principles, he had chosen to leave it all for a sea life. However, he couldn’t hide his scorn for Teach’s offensive behaviour.

“It’s time to act”, he told his men.

O’Hara nodded.

“What are you going to do?”, he asked him.

Rogers pointed at three narrow streets on the opposite side from where he was standing: two of them were running around the church; the third one, instead, was a bit farther.

“We are going to encircle them”, he answered. “Blackbeard bestowed a great advantage on us, by letting the prisoners go. So we won’t have them under our feet.” He started thinking over the matter again. The guards were still on their knees, almost in the middle of the square, and were watched closely by the pirates. “As far as the soldiers are concerned, they swore they would die for their country. So they are not our problem. You are going to part into three groups and go round the houses. I’m going to stay here.”