That handclasp was like two gigantic palmetto leaves entwined, and one of the most manly expressions of mutual respect I have ever experienced. I didn’t have to be told, nor did Cork, why Bunch had refused parole. It went beyond loyalty to his crew and scaled the heights of sacrifice. This rough-and-tumble seaman would, by sheer determination, keep his men’s spirits alive, if not their bodies. He was a walking symbol of diffident fortitude — what the Americans call guts.
As we later learned, he had been pressed into the Royal Navy at twelve, never to see Spithead again until he was eighteen, only to ship out again until he jumped ship in the Indies and plied his trade in various American bottoms. If the brutalities of navy life — the floggings, the weary watches before the mast, the harsh discipline of “gentlemen” officers, and the months of tainted food — couldn’t break him, how could this hulk? Perhaps there is some Divine scheme that prepares us for one brilliant hour.
Cork huddled us into the darker shadows and spoke rapidly and incisively. “Our business here is of vital importance to the cause, Booth. Is Aymes really dead? Where is Thatch and what’s this about scalping?”
“Aymes is dead and he was stabbed and scalped, although the other lads don’t know about that part. No sense puttin’ more fear in ’em. Me and Potts wrapped him in a shroud and put him out with the dead like he passed normal-like. I told you he was stabbed because I wanted to see how you took the wind of it. And you didn’t show a ripple. That’s why I saw you as a spy. There’s no Thatch here and that’s on the book, brother.”
“Whom do you suspect of Aymes’s murder?”
“None of my crew, but we got a lot of other crews and soldiers aboard.”
“Who else died the same night as Aymes? Think carefully, Booth.”
“ ’Tain’t hard,” Potts piped. “I was on burial detail, both Mr. Booth and me. There was a young soldier name of Coombs and that slant-eyed duck — what’s ’is name?” He looked at Booth.
“Never knew it to tell. Looked like a half-breed harpooner I once met.”
Cork shook his head in disgust. “A Micmac Abenaki.”
“A what?”
“A Nova Scotia member of the Abenaki nation, Oaks. They resemble Orientals in feature because they have mixed blood with the snow tribes of the Arctic regions.”
“But he was deader’n a mackerel,” Potts exclaimed, “and he didn’t kill himself neither.”
“An Indian can play possum for hours, and with the help of an herbal concoction he can truly appear dead, even to a gravesman.”
“You mean Cunningham sent a murderin’ savage in here?”
“No, Booth. Cunningham is a blackguard, but he knows nothing of Indians and how to control them.” Cork stopped for a moment and a sly smile gave way to his muttering. “So at last he’s tipped his hand!”
“What say?”
“Never mind. It’s another matter, Booth. It seems our trip has been foiled, Oaks, and now we must plan an escape.”
“I’m still tryin’ to figger out how you got aboard.” Bunch Booth scratched his head and gave us a toothless smile.
“That, too, will have to wait. First, are there any weakened bars on the gunports?”
Another smile from Booth, this time like that of a fox. “Aye, but these lads are too weak to swim for it.”
“I’ll try to have supplies smuggled to you. And believe me, Congress will hear of these conditions. Now, tonight, we are going to have a bit of an insurrection of our own.”
That night, we could hear the din raised by the prisoners as we quietly swam across the flooding Tidal Pond. After some difficulty, we found the flotation markers Cork had left and made our way to the half-submerged Tortoise.
Once aboard, Cork located the sulphur stick-box and lit a candle to check the instruments.
“Don’t look so woebegone, Oaks. At least we know The Hairbuyer’s operating in Canada at the moment.”
“I was thinking of the little boy. I trust he is sent home safely.”
“What little boy?”
“The little blond fellow on the quarterdeck. Didn’t you see him this morning? He was feeding his parrot, Blackbeard, and Potts at the same time.”
“Confound and goddamn you, man,” he fumed, “when will you learn to report every detail?” He started to scamper out of the submersible.
“The tide will be turning in an hour,” he said sternly. “If I haven’t returned by then, you are to drift out with it as best you can. If you get back, send this message to Congress: They are not to be hoodwinked into thinking the message from Paris has been intercepted when they receive Aymes’s scalp. Even if his wife or kin identifies it, they are to pay it no mind.”
“But, Captain,” I pleaded, “the child will certainly be transferred home. Why risk it?”
He reached down before he went out the hatch and touched my shoulder. “I’m sorry I abused you, old son. Have a care now.”
I waited in the dreadful darkness, praying for his safety. How like him to go back for Jibs or any child. Oh, I know over the years people have laughed behind my back over my steadfast loyalty to Cork. But they will never know how it feels to be sold into bondage, to come to a strange land and then, at a Philadelphia dockside, to be bought like a sack of apples by a tall sunburned American in buckskins and then have that man turn to you and say, “Well, man, what are you waiting about for? Go now, lad, you’re free.” And when I asked why, to be told, “Because I can’t buy them all, and you looked the most in need of freedom.”
Over the years, I have harangued about his extravagances, his excesses; and yet his first extravagance was me.
The depth bubble was rising all too fast for my liking when I heard the thud and clatter at the hatch. I thanked God and opened it. His wet body dropped down. He secured the hatch tightly and said breathlessly, “Strike the candle, Oaks.”
I did, and saw him standing shirtless and exhausted.
“You couldn’t get the child, then. Too bad.”
“Don’t worry. The child will get home. I got what I wanted.”
From behind him, he had his shirt tied like a sack, and from it he took the damned parrot. “Meet our agent, Mr. Thatch,” he said triumphantly.
“Oh, Captain,” I said with true pity, “you’re mistaken. Potts told me, he’s as dumb as Job’s turkey. Even the Hessian guards gave up in disgust last night.”
“Then there were a flock of Job’s turkeys aboard that ship, and I among them until you told me his name was Blackbeard. Don’t you see? Franklin’s a clever old coot. What was Blackbeard the pirate’s real name?”
“Tench, I believe.”
“Or Thatch. No one was ever quite sure. Leave it to an old printer like Franklin to remember that oddity, but then he was a printer’s apprentice when Blackbeard was holding sway, and facts like that stick in a boy’s mind.”
“But the bird can’t talk — or imitate, to be more correct.”
“Parrots are stupid, Oaks, but that’s because people don’t know how to get their attention. Down in Spanish America, they have a trick of teaching them most anything — but you have to do it in the dark, so they can concentrate on the lesson.”
“Well,” I said, trying not to sound ignorant, “did you have a nice conversation on the way back? It’s certainly dark enough in the water.”
“A very nice conversation, to be sure — eh, Polly? Listen.”
All I heard were cackles and squawks, and I told Cork so.