Want me to pull out the bits from your leg with just this pig knife and my fingers? There be holes in the sail and gulls in the rigging and dead men rolling the deck in their blood, and you won’t loan me the use of your cutlass to save yourself, however it was obtained?
So long as I can see it.
You’ll feel it.
Wait, wait — where is it going?
There’s coals left from the cannonwork — I must burn you to stop the blood.
No, no, not that.
I can slip the cutlass from your fingers after all your insides have rotted. A fine cutlass it is too, with those rubies in the hilt, or is it all my brother’s blood?
It’s my foot I can’t move, nothing’s wrong with my leg. This foot is stone.
Watch the flame, watch the flame.
Why can’t I faint like a girl?
Just breathe steady instead of making all that noise. Bite the rope like it was Ma’s, served up in the soup, and breathe.
I’m bimmm-fff-iiii-ttt-ing.
Leave off me with your bloody chops, you cur. Bite the rope, not me. Already so much blood slicks up the wound I can hardly get a grip on it and I’ve still got the sawing to do.
I’m fainting, I’m going to faint.
Then faint, in Christ’s blood, faint.
I can’t.
Stop that screaming, someone will hear.
They’re all dead.
Are you sure? They could be like us, they could be resurrecting and fit to kill, or a half-dead cook with his knives.
What — you go wiping the blade on your sleeve like I’m a bloody joint of lamb?
The lice won’t stick if I drag it across me clean. If I douse it with water, the sharks swarming will come. Breathe when I do. Breathe.
Breathe, breathe — where did you get a knack for this breathing and butchering?
Bother. The shot is too far in.
You’ll cry if I die.
From joy to be rid of you! Sing out or talk, your shrieks make the cutting hard.
O, the merry old man of Bis-do-bee!
Better.
I dreamt of a mermaid the size of a whale with a place to move around inside her, a pleasure place.
Really? Maybe I dreamt it too and didn’t tell you. There’s the shot. Now, hold still. This blood is so bloody slippery.
Give me that cutlass! Give it to me! You’ll do me no more harm.
I’ll knock you in the head with it, I will.
The cutl—
Egad, I will have to chop the whole of the leg, to the joint and around. You’ll not be thanking me for this. Use the courage you swore to when Luggams made you the pirate you didn’t want to be.
My head. You didn’t have to crush my brains out!
Now to the coals again.
Coals!
Just a quick burn.
My leg.
As soon as I have you trussed, I’ll toss the leg over and goodbye, just like that. Goodbye in the dark and good riddance. Then I’ll steal the bo’sun’s false leg if he hasn’t rolled off, and make you a new one, bye-the-bye, to fit. A leg you can jew up a dance on the spot for the ladies — but hold still now and stay quiet and quit that bleeding.
Four hundred gold pieces?
If there be a pirate left to pay you for the leg. The ship be ours now, and all its little treasure to split between us. There’s a squall in the dark that’s coming for us, but the sails still be strong. We could be in for a flip.
The ship’s leaning on her shoulder already, the fish will be climbing my boots by dawn.
Boot.
Aye, the one.
13
The ship sails itself.
14. Days Later
Having to haul the fly-besotted enemy overboard, it’s another offense against us.
They could’ve left the charts.
They could’ve left the sails unslashed, the rigging primped and the rudder sound.
Where are we? We’ll never see our shores again in this drift, unless we are taken and hanged.
Hanged.
Will you shut that parrot up?
Hanged.
Hold the beak.
The governor himself sat with Shanks and Luggams, and refit their ship in sight of Boston harbor. I heard the mate tell of it.
Home is not Boston harbor.
If we could but steer home.
It’s not so far off when it comes to measuring from sea to sea.
A visit home is your grave day.
O’Maury, O’Mallory, they grow their own crosses—
They sit on the shore a-counting their losses
The lassies come begging with boils on their -
And still you keep dancing
And still you keep jigging
Praising the glory of the Cutlass King’s lashes.
You made that up.
I made it up while Luggams slept, and sang it in my sleep while he forbade it. I love to sing. I learned from Ma’s husband, the sixth.
Hanged.
You know, in another week, I’d have had a solid gold cutlass. We were going up against the King of Cutlasses in a week, the great pirate of España with his knives of gold.
Soft knives, that, in solid gold.
Oh, yes, he would have been our next except you had to practically bleed to death, wriggling round the deck like a briney shrimp, chasing me with your leftover leg.
Shrimp, never.
Hanged.
I’ve heard of a parrot that could recite all the rivers in Africa.
There’s enough talking between the two of us.
But if you were to—
I’m not dead nor drowned in the drink yet.
Tis’ a fine leg I made for you, yours is. It’s the table that’s not much anymore.
I fear my stump is spoiling. Even the spoils you took are spoiled.
That ham they had!
The velvets stood up with mold.
I look nice enough in them, my stitchery done best without the wash of blood.
Butchery, not stitchery.
Hanged.
Shut up! Shut up! I can’t stand it.
Our dead foe taught it, to lash himself with warning.
“Save the cook” is better. That’s what I’d teach it. Every time before I stick someone, I ask Cook? first, not brother.
A spate of brothers and all of them like you, with your time pieces a’rusting, and foul, desperate boats.
Hanged.
Brothers all, brothers who will make you drink seawater soon enough.
You knew that would bring up the pearls. They were all I had from two years of repairing watches. Now all I have is my leg, the lost one, swimming beside the ship. Would that it would guide us.
By the by, you are free now. Free of the pirates’ hold.
Free to die? I swore, didn’t I?
Hanged. Hanged.
It’s a smart one, to fly off so fast as that.
You should never have released it.
It’s taken such a liking to you. Pretties your shoulder.
Begone! Begone! It’s just waiting to see if I die of my leg. A bird of prey.
The game then, before it returns.
Black teeth — Queen of spades.
Blind eye — My deuce.
Nine o’ hearts — Pegleg.
Bit pecker — Double sixes.
Fiver — Hook hand.
Pieces o’ eight.
You win.
At least the bleeding’s stopped.
Pull down the canvas to shade me. I hate all fish though I could swallow a white-fleshed one now, I could.
Hanged.
It’s just come back to check on your leg.
Hand me the poker. With the cutlass and the redhot poker, I’ve got twice the chance of killing it.
Take care, your leg’s not — and the wallow of the boat—
Never mind the leg. I’ll get it, I’ll get it. It’s not so high that I can’t — with this poker—