Free Web NovelChapter 27: The Finest Scoundrels
Dawn arrived clear over the harbor. Gulls worked the shallows where fishwives cleaned yesterday’s catch, and porters rolled barrels toward waiting ships.
Somewhere near the market end of the waterfront, a voice rose above the noise. It carried far enough to be heard three streets away.
"Sign aboard the Bloody Rose, ye magnificent bastards!"
The excitement was palpable, "Sunk a French man-o’-war and lived to brag on it! There’s silver paid afore ye even sign the Articles, and prize money after, and glory enough to make yer mothers weep with pride or terror, whichever comes first!"
"That’s Kit."
Cudjoe watched James drag an overturned cask into position beside a plank balanced across two barrels. It wasn’t much of a recruiting table, but it would do.
"Half o’ what comes out his mouth’s a lie."
"Aye, but it’s an enthusiastic lie." ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
James set the ship’s ledger and a borrowed inkpot on the plank. The breeze threatened to lift the page, so he pinned it down with a marlinspike he’d taken from the deck.
"Worth somethin’, that."
Briggs grunted and dropped onto an upturned bucket beside them. The look on his face suggested he’d rather have been given almost any other task.
"He’s promisin’ them glory."
Cudjoe snorted. "We’re givin’ them silver and a foremast that still groans in a stiff wind."
"Close enough."
Recruitment depended more on confidence than accuracy.
James waved the first man forward.
The fellow was tall and gaunt. One foot wore a boot, while the other was wrapped in sailcloth. He grinned as if the job were already his.
"Name?"
The man replied, "Mackerel Jim, Cap’n. Won it off a wager in Curaçao, eatin’ forty mackerel in a sittin’ to beat a Dutchman."
Sounds like the mackerel were the real victims." James blinked.
Cudjoe’s expression didn’t change.
"Would’ve been fifty, but the Dutchman died laughin’ before I finished the platter."
"Can ye swim?"
Mackerel Jim nodded, "Like a fish with a grudge. Spent three days in the water after the Hopewell went down off Tortuga, fightin’ sharks with nothin’ but me teeth and a strong character."
"The sharks must’ve found you indigestible."
"Really four days, if ye count the day I spent convincin’ a fishin’ boat I wasn’t a ghost."
"Ever gone aloft? Worked a rope?"
Mackerel snickered, "Cap’n, I was born in the riggin’. Me mother went into labor durin’ a squall and the midwife had to climb up after her."
Briggs stared at him for a moment.
"I’m too old for this."
James had already reached the point where resisting a grin was impossible. The man was either a complete fraud or exactly the sort of sailor the Rose attracted.
"Welcome aboard, Mackerel Jim. Try not to eat the crew."
The line behind him didn’t shrink after that.
If anything, it seemed encouraged.
A barrel-chested man with a nose broken in three different places admitted he couldn’t swim at all and saw no reason anyone should care.
"Means I’ll work twice as hard keepin’ the ship afloat as any man who’s got himself a fallback."
The logic made little sense, but James hired him before Cudjoe could finish explaining why.
A wiry sailor draped in knotted twine and bits of bone answered every question with a different superstition.
When asked whether he’d handled a flintlock, he claimed he did so only on clear days, never while facing east, and that asking twice would sour the luck.
Cudjoe watched him for a long moment, apparently weighing whether further questions would create actual information.
Then he sent the man to the back of the line without comment.
A boy who barely reached James’s shoulder swore he’d seen twenty-three winters. His voice cracked halfway through the claim.
"You’ve either counted fast or aged faster." James laughed.
"Aye, Cap’n. Hard livin’ ages a man quick."
"Clearly."
The Rose needed hands more than precision. James signed him on anyway, reasoning that the ship could use the extra body and Kit could use someone closer to his own age.
The last man in that group wore what remained of a soldier’s coat. Half the buttons were missing, and every trace of the regiment’s colors had been removed.
The moment Cudjoe asked which service he’d deserted, the answers became remarkably vague.
"Wouldn’t like to say. Bad luck, namin’ the ones still lookin’ for ye."
"Fair enough."
Being hunted by someone else’s officers normally meant a man understood urgency. James signed him on as well.
Two more applicants approached together.
They were already arguing before they reached the table and looked nearly identical, right down to the same crooked nose.
"Names."
Cudjoe’s tone suggested he expected trouble.
"Ezra Hollis," said the one on the left.
"He’s lyin’, I’m Ezra. He’s Silas. Always tries this."
"I am nae lyin’, ye’re the one who cannae remember his own-"
"Enough."
Cudjoe rubbed at his temple. The the identity problem clearly wasn’t worth the effort.
"Can either of ye sail?"
"Both of us."
The one claiming to be Ezra jabbed a thumb at his chest.
"Worked a merchantman out of Bristol three years."
"Two years. Ye always add a year when it suits ye."
"And fight?" Cudjoe cut them.
"Better than him," they said together.
Both immediately turned and glared at the other for matching the answer.
James leaned toward Cudjoe, trying not to laugh.
"I like ’em."
"Ye like anyone who can stand upright and hold a blade."
Still, two men who argued that consistently would probably watch each other’s backs, if only to keep the other alive long enough to continue the argument.
Cudjoe waved them through.
A cook with flour still caught in his beard claimed his biscuits had cured scurvy in three crews and a broken heart in at least one captain.
"The heart part’s harder to prove," James admitted.
"Aye, but nobody’s disproved it either."
That was apparently enough.
A man missing his left eye insisted the loss improved his aim because he had one less thing distracting him from the target.
"That’s nae how eyes work."
"Tell that to the six Frenchmen I put down at Saint-Domingue."
Cudjoe lacked a quick way to disprove the claim and decided the conversation wasn’t worth the time.
He waved the man onward.
By the time the sun climbed high enough to burn away the last of the harbor mist, the Rose’s ledger held a dozen new names beneath the Articles.
Twelve men had exchanged common sense for earnest silver.
The crew count had climbed from thirty-nine toward something that almost resembled a proper complement.
James was sorting through the signatures when a shadow fell across the plank.
It covered the ledger and the coins before him.
The change in light was sudden enough to demand an explanation.
He looked up.
The man standing over him blocked out a surprising amount of the harbor. His shoulders were broad enough to fill a hatchway, and his height suggested long experience ducking beneath doorframes.
Recognition came a heartbeat later.
"Well, I’ll be damned."
Of all the men he might’ve expected to find here, he’d have wagered exactly nothing on this one.
