So John was a pirate, and a good one, and followed his luck from ship to ship. Now and then he heard his mother’s ghost telling him he could get work as a bricklayer, if only he’d try; and he assured her he would try, next time the opportunity presented itself.
He liked looting, if he was taking loot from foreigners. He liked lying on a beach of white sand by night, watching the stars slide down toward the mangrove trees. He liked fiery rum, though not so much after the first time he woke up naked in an alley in Tortuga. He only wanted luck, he thought, to make enough to buy a plantation somewhere and live like a gentleman.
That was why he listened avidly to the stories, whether they were told beside a driftwood fire or on deck under a tropic moon, or beside a guttering candle at a filthy table. The stories were all about Harry Morgan, king of privateers, luckiest man in the West Indies. His luck rubbed off on any man so happy as to set sail with him, or so they said.
They said at the lake of Maracaibo, Morgan took a fortune, and then found his way back to the sea blocked by a Spanish fleet. He sent a dummy fleet among them, loaded with powderkegs, with logs of wood dressed as men on the decks, and the Spanish never realized the trick until the fireships blew up in their faces.
They said he’d got past the high castle guarding the harbor by seeming to land five hundred men in the mangroves, and the Spanish garrison grew fearful and trained their great guns on the trees, expecting an attack from that side; and all the while it was only the same ten men going back and forth in one longboat, sitting up on the way out and lying flat in the bottom of the boat on the way back. Night fell and the Spaniards kept watch on the land, while Morgan’s fleet sailed out under their noses, and they never realized they’d missed him until he was well out to sea. There was no predicament so dire Morgan’s luck couldn’t get him out of it.
John’s luck, on the other hand, came and went.
He was sitting on a wharf one summer evening, watching the yellow moon sparkle on the sea, when he heard the rumor: Morgan’s drinking with his captains, and they’re going out for plunder!
John’s hair fairly stood on the back of his neck. He jumped to his feet and ran to the tavern, praying he had the right one and thinking surely he had; for there were three or four skulkers outside, peering in through the window and looking as though they were getting their nerve up. Timing is all, John had learned that much. He shouldered through the lot of them and, ducking his head, stepped inside.
He blinked in the smoky gloom. The tavern was crowded, each table and settle occupied by men with tankards and jacks, and long-stemmed pipes, and cards, and dice. The rum went untasted, though, and the cards might have been blank and the dice spotless as souls in Paradise for all anyone noticed them. Every man in the place had his head turned, staring at one particular table lit by a hanging lantern.
Harry Morgan sat there in the pool of light with four others, prosperous captains all. They spoke together in low voices. John walked up to the table and took off his hat. “I do beg your pardon, gentlemen,” he said, with a dry mouth. “But I did hear there was an expedition toward, and take the liberty of inquiring whether you might need an able-bodied seaman. Sirs.”
Morgan looked up at him.
“An expedition toward, is it?” he said, and his Monmouthshire voice was sharp as a needle. “And who says so?”
John swallowed hard. He mustered all the boldness he could and grinned. “Why, sir, even the chimney-pots have heard by now. Sure, Fame follows you like a shadow.”
“Flattery, too,” said Morgan, eyeing him. He stroked his beard. “It may be, sir, that we are contemplating certain business. It may be that we need a man or two. Bradley!” He tapped his finger on the table before one of the other captains, and indicated John with a jerk of his head. “There is perhaps a berth wants filling on the Mayflower, is there not?”
Captain Bradley looked around swiftly, but with elaborate casualness yawned, and said: “Perhaps. Who’s this great side of beef? Are you much of a fighter, sir?”
“Please you, sir, a powerful fighter,” said John, showing the size of his fist. “And a gunner too, by God.”
“Not a delicate one, are you?” Morgan demanded. “No trick knees? No weak backs? No fainting in the heat of the sun, eh?”
“No, sir,” said John. “And I’ve had the fever and lived to tell the tale. I’m your man, sir, for a forced march or boarding a ship, either one. Nor blood don’t give me no swooning fits, neither.”
“Well, that is a good thing,” said Morgan dryly. “And how much ready cash have you to hand? For, look you, you’ll want plenty of powder and shot. I should say three muskets and a brace of pistols, in good condition, and cutlasses too. Shall you have all these by the fourteenth? As we sail then, you know.”
“Why—sure, I have them,” said John. “Or will have, by the fourteenth.”
“See that you do,” said Bradley. “And if you are a true gunner, so much the better; you’ll get a double share.”
“Always assuming there is any profit,” said Morgan, setting his finger to the side of his nose. “For we go out on the old terms, you know. No purchase, no pay.”
“Aye, sir,” said John. “The fourteenth, is it?”
“From King’s Wharf,” said Captain Bradley. “Mind you be there by the evening before, so as to sign on. Sooner, if you can; lest the berths be all full then.”
“Aye, Captain,” said John. “I will, indeed.”
They went back to their drinking, so he bowed and backed away. Emboldened by what he’d done, a crowd of men rushed to fill the place he’d just left, and John heard their voices raised in supplication to Morgan. He found his way out alone, and the relative cool of the night wind was sweet on his face.
The plain truth of it was, John hadn’t a penny to his name. He owned a sea-chest, a cutlass, one pistol, a hammock and a pair of blankets, plus the clothes on his back; and he was reckoned pretty well-to-do for a sailor, at that.
He lived, just then, in a camp on the beach some two miles along the sand spit, with some of his shipmates from the old Clapham. It was an easy life, living on fish and turtles, so long as a man had no thirst and wasn’t too particular about sand flies; but his mates were drifting away one by one, and pretty soon the camp would fill up with strangers. It was time to move on anyhow.
Pity about the money, John thought to himself. He wandered away up Lime Street, half-hoping some thief would have a go at him; for he had turned the tables more than once, beating an assailant into unconsciousness and possessing himself of whatever he found in the man’s pockets. No one came near him tonight, however. The only other figure he could spot, all along the street, was a drunken man staggering along some thirty paces ahead of him.
John being sober, pretty soon he came upon the other man, and was about to pass him when the fellow gave a sort of gasping cry and dropped as though he’d been clubbed. John stood back, aghast. He stepped into the shadow of a wall and watched for a long moment, as the cold starlight glittered down. The other fellow never moved again.
So, John came and knelt by him, and turned him over. This took some doing, for the man was exceedingly fat, and soaked with sweat besides. He stared up at the stars unblinking, though sand was in his face and dusted on the lashes of his eyes. Dead as mutton; of apoplexy maybe, for he didn’t stink of fever, but only wine. And maybe his tonnage killed him, for it was all John could do to take him by his soft hands and haul him into Pelican Alley, so heavy he was.