Hawke
by Ted Bell
Prologue
The boy, barely seven years old, was dreaming what was to be the last completely happy dream of his life.
He was sound asleep in the top bunk of his tiny berth as images of his dog, Scoundrel, bounded across his mind. They had taken a small picnic down to the edge of the sea, just below the big house where his grandfather lived. Scoundrel was plunging again and again into the waves, retrieving the red rubber ball. But now some terrible black storm appeared to be howling in from the sea, and there was a voice calling him to come home quickly.
And then someone was grabbing his shoulder, whispering in his ear. Alex! Alex! Alex!
Yes, someone was shaking him, telling him to wake up, wake up now, even though he knew it was still nighttime, could hear the waves lapping against the hull of the sailboat, could see the blue moonlight streaming through the porthole onto his bedcovers, could hear the faint whistle of wind in the rigging of the tall mast that towered above the decks.
“Wake up, Alex, wake up!” said the voice.
He rolled over and opened his sleepy eyes. In the dim light of the tiny cabin he could see his father standing at his bedside, wearing an old gray T-shirt that said “Royal Navy.” His father’s jet-black parrot, Sniper, was perched on his shoulder. The bird was unusually quiet.
His dad had a terrible look on his face, almost scared, the boy thought, which was silly because his father wasn’t afraid of anything. He was the best, bravest man of all.
“Time to rise and shine?” the boy asked.
“Yes, it is, I’m afraid, little fellow,” his father said in a hurried, gentle whisper. “You have to get up quickly now and come with Daddy. Here, I’ll help you down.”
His father reached up with one hand to pull back his covers and help him onto the little ladder leading down from his berth. At the last moment, the boy clutched the blanket he’d had almost since birth and gripped it to his chest as he descended the ladder. Then his father picked him up in one arm and carried him out of the cabin and into the dark companionway. They turned left, and ran through the darkness toward the front of the boat, the bow it was called, his father still whispering in his ear as they ran.
“It’s going to be all right, we just have to hide you for a while and you have to be very, very quiet. Not a single noise till Daddy comes to get you, understand? Not a peep, okay?”
“Yes, Father,” the boy said, although he could feel himself growing scared now. They’d reached the end of the long corridor and his father put him down. “What’s wrong?” the boy asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m going up on deck to find out,” his father said, taking him by the hand. The boy, still trying to rub the sleep from his eyes with the corner of his blanket, followed his father into the small compartment all the way in the bow.
This bow compartment was too small to be of much use for anything really. So it was just piled high with coiled ropes and boxes of canned food and other supplies. There was a wooden box filled with dark bottles of “hootch,” which is what his father called the stuff he drank up on deck every night before dinner. Behind all the boxes, on the forward wall, was a door. Alex had once stacked boxes under the door and tried to pry it open, thinking it would make an excellent hiding spot. He didn’t know what was in there, but the door was always locked.
His father used a key now to open the little door.
“This is where we keep the extra anchor and mooring lines, Alex,” his father whispered. “And a few things we don’t want stolen, like Mummy’s good silverware from home. But there are other things in here, things I don’t want anyone to ever find. I’ll show you one right now.”
The locker itself was a very small V-shaped space, too small to be even called a room. From it came a smell of oily, muddy chain and ropes. The big anchor was in use, of course, holding them to the sandy bottom of a little cove.
They were in the Exumas, a chain of islands stretching south of the Bahamas, and had been mooring in a different cove every afternoon. This one was the prettiest of all. His father had shown it to him on the chart. The anchorage he was searching for was called the Luna Sea, which his dad had thought quite a clever name.
Alex pointed out that the island itself had a funny shape. “It looks like the mean old wolf,” he’d said. “The one that ate up the three little piggies.”
“Well, then, we’ll call it Big Bad Wolf Island,” his father had said.
It was a small bay of deep blue water, rimmed by a crescent of white sand. At one end of the beach was a stand of palm trees, bending and rustling in the wind. There were brilliantly colored fish swimming all around the boat. Alex, standing on the bow, dove into the water as soon as they’d anchored. His father had been teaching him the names of all the fish. He was looking for his newest favorite, the black and yellow striped ones called Sergeant-Majors.
He and his father had had a splendid evening of it until it got dark, diving off the bow, then swimming around to the ladder hanging from the stern. Mother had been waiting on deck at sunset with a big fluffy towel and, hugging him while drying him off, she’d asked him to name all the fish he’d seen.
So many beautifully colored fish in the clear water, he’d told her, it was hard to remember all their names. Triggerfish. Clownfish. Angelfish. That was the one. Did they come down from heaven? he wondered. But you could reach out and touch the Angels and they would nibble your fingers. Ticklish bites. It seemed long ago.
The boy bent forward and peered into the anchor locker, so dark in the nighttime.
“I’m not scared, Dad,” the boy said in a small voice. “Maybe I look scared, but it’s only because I’m a little sleepy.” He was looking up at his father with a serious expression on his face.
“Is everything okay? Is Mother okay?” he asked.
“She’s fine, fine,” his father whispered. “She’s hiding as well, you see, back in the stern. And keeping just as quiet as a church mouse, too. Isn’t that fun?”
“I guess so, Daddy.”
“Yes. Do you have a pocket on your pajama top? Yes, you do, don’t you? Splendid!”
His father reached up inside the locker and ran his hands along its ceiling, feeling for something. Then he had it and turned to his son.
“I want you to put this into your pocket and save it for Daddy, all right?”
His father handed him a small blue envelope with something folded up inside.
“What is it?” Alex asked.
“Why, it’s an ancient pirate treasure map, of course! So, take good care of it. Now, I want you to climb inside this little room and then I’m going to close the door and then you’ll lock it, like a game. When I come back, I’ll knock three times and that will mean it’s time for you to come out. Hurry now, upsy-daisy, in you go.”
“Yes, Father, it’s going to be fun, isn’t it?”
“Right you are. Here’s the key. I’m going to stick it into the lock on your side of the door. I want you to lock the door from the inside. And, don’t open it for anybody but Daddy, all right? Now, three knocks, remember?”
The boy crawled up inside and pulled his tattered blanket in after him, tugging it up around his chin. The chains were rough and hurt his skin through his thin pajamas. They were his favorite ones, covered with cowboys and Indians and six-shooters. He wore them every night of his life, never allowing anybody to even wash them. They would certainly get dirty now. It was hot in this place and it didn’t smell very good either.
They’d been sailing for almost two weeks now, and the child had explored every inch of the vessel, learning the names of everything. His father’s new boat, a beautiful yawl he’d christened Seahawke, was on her maiden voyage to the Bahamas and Exumas. She was almost as large as his grandfather’s ancient schooner in England, the one he kept moored at Greybeard Island: a wonderful boat called the Rambler.