By the Knife Read online

  CHAPTER 3

  The work was hard and sometimes dangerous. The Delft was an old ship, strong but clumsy. When the weather was bad she was unwieldy; when it was calm she was slow.

  Her deep fat hull, however, enabled her to carry large cargos and that made money.

  Van Hesston took his ship wherever there was profit.

  Three months after John Carter had joined her, she sailed into the Baltic. She was chartered to carry timber to France from Stockholm in Sweden. The day she arrived a snowstorm blotted out the town for some hours. Loading was delayed until the weather cleared and the crew, huddled below, had the foc’sle stove burning brightly in an attempt to keep warm. Carter told his captain he would walk ashore into the town.

  ‘You are crazy, boy,’ Van Hesston told him. ‘But if you want to freeze, go ahead.’

  As with all towns the dock area was the worst part of town and after only a short walk Carter found what he was looking for.

  The shop was small and dirty, as was the man who sat behind the counter.

  ‘I have some things to sell,’ John told him.

  The man smiled at the young boy before him. ‘Let’s see them then,’ he said.

  His eyes lit up as John tipped the goods from the house in London onto the counter.

  ‘Now where did you get all this?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s my business,’ John told him.

  The man picked up a gold watch and then a snuff box. ‘I’ll have to get it valued,’ he said. ‘Leave it all here and come back tomorrow.’

  ‘You value it now or I’m gone,’ John snarled.

  ‘Now you listen to me, you little shit,’ the man began and then stopped when he saw the pistol John had in his hand. ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Don’t get nasty. Let’s have a look.’ He turned the pile over again and then said, ‘I’ll give you ten gold pieces.’

  ‘You will give me thirty,’ John told him.

  ‘I said ten,’ the man said, ‘and ten it is.’

  ‘Then I’m gone.’ John started putting the things back in his bag.

  ‘Fifteen,’ the man said, moving closer. John continued putting things in his bag. ‘Alright, twenty and that’s my final offer.’

  John stopped filling the bag. ‘Let’s see the money,’ he said.

  The man moved to the back of the shop and opening a box took out a leather purse. He came round to John’s side of the counter and started counting out twenty gold pieces.

  Suddenly, he snatched at John’s pistol, dragging the boy towards him; at the same time he shouted something in Swedish.

  The knife appeared in John’s left hand; he stabbed at the man’s stomach and as the man reeled back releasing the pistol, John shot a younger man who ran through from the back of the shop. Moving quickly forward, John cut the old man’s throat and then stabbed the younger man who was trying to stop the blood pouring from his side. He had to stab him twice more before he stopped moving.

  John ran through to the back room, but nobody else was there. Walking back into the shop, he locked the street door and then dragged both bodies behind the counter. It took only a few minutes to put his goods back in the bag and pick up the old man’s money from where it had fallen. The wooden box contained another small purse, which he put in his pocket. John looked his clothes over but could see no blood. He blew out the lamp and, locking the street door behind him, set off back to the ship.

  ‘Where did you get to?’ Van Hesston asked him. ‘Some dive?’

  ‘No.’ John smiled. ‘I could find nothing open.’

  Later that night when the captain was asleep, John counted the old man’s money: fifty-four gold pieces and a little silver and copper.

  Perhaps this was a new trade he should think about.

  Boudreaux when they arrived was wet with a chill breeze coming up the Gironde valley. The Delft berthed behind a large brigantine on a private jetty; the name Du Bois was written in large letters above the warehouse. Unloading started immediately and by the third day the ship was almost out. Du Bois himself came down to the dock to talk to Van Hesston. He was tall and slightly overweight with dark greying hair and a short beard. Once the business was concluded he spent some time standing on the jetty looking at the Delft; in particular he spent some time looking at John.

  Du Bois started to walk away and then, as if he had just thought of something, he turned back. ‘Captain,’ he called. ‘I need the clearance from your last port of call. Send the boy up with it.’

  Van Hesston gave John the papers. ‘This man is important for our business, John,’ he said. ‘You should be nice to him.’

  The office John walked into was large and well decorated with a carved desk and upholstered chairs and couch. Du Bois closed the door behind him. He took the papers and threw them onto the desk.

  Lightly stroking John’s chin, he said, ‘You are a very good-looking boy. Would you like to earn some money?’

  A shock like lightning fired through John’s brain. With a scream he leapt back and then snatching the knife from his shirt, he sprang forward slashing at the Frenchman’s throat only to be dragged back before he could strike. Strong arms pulled him towards the door.

  ‘John,’ his captain shouted in his ear. ‘John, calm down.’

  Struggling like a madman, John screamed, ‘Nobody touches me, nobody.

  Van Hesston and one of his crew dragged John to the ground and then sat on him, pinning him to the dock. It had taken them some time to disarm him and even longer for him to calm down. A red fog slowly cleared from the boy’s brain.

  Now through clenched teeth, John said, ‘Get off me. Give me my knife.’

  ‘You can have your knife once we are back on the ship, John,’ Van Hesston told him. ‘Du Bois is important for my business; I can’t let you cut him. Come back to the ship with us and we will forget this business.’

  John’s eyes flashed as he looked at his captain. ‘Nobody touches me, not you or anybody else,’ he snarled.

  Two nights later John once again set out with his bag of goods. The shop he found this time was much like the one in Stockholm: small and dark with a little man sitting behind a table at the back. John stood before the table. He looked round the room and made sure there was no door to a hidden room at the back.

  ‘I have things to sell.’ He tipped his bag out onto the table. The man looked into John’s eyes and seemed to read something there. He picked up one item at a time and stated a price for each, placing them at one end of the table.

  Finally, the total was twenty-seven gold pieces.

  ‘Did you find these things in France?’ he asked.

  John shook his head. ‘No, in London,’ he muttered.

  The shopkeeper slowly counted out the money and when John reached for it threw a large leather purse onto the table.

  ‘Perhaps you will have more to sell,’ he said.

  John nodded. ‘Perhaps.’

  Four years later, good if plain food, fresh air and hard work had put muscle on Carter’s bones. He had grown into a strikingly handsome man with broad shoulders and a straight back. At almost six feet he stood eye to eye with his captain. Van Hesston had taught him to sail and navigate and even the crew had to admit that he had learnt well.

  At first, the crew had resented his presence amongst them.

  On one occasion the bos’un had attempted to strike him, but the knife had appeared in John’s hand as if by magic and opened the man’s arm.

  The captain had taken the knife away, but two days later John was seen sharpening it.

  Slowly the men had accepted that he was going to stay and kept silent.

  The Delft had traded the length and breadth of the German sea and twice gone to the Spanish Canary Islands. Three times they had unloaded in London, once on Dutchman’s Wharf. John Carter had stayed in the cabin for the entire visit.

  Now they had again arrived back in Rotterdam. Once alongside, the crew had wandered off to see their wives ashore and the captain had gone to meet hi
s partners.

  Van Hesston owned one third of the Delft.

  Carter was left on board to watch the ship, as was normally the case. Towards evening he put down the ship’s boat and sculled across the harbour. The land was flat and marshy to the south side of the estuary and pulling the boat up onto the sea grass, Carter strolled off along a river bank.

  After walking for some time he saw a blond lad fishing under a tree. Putting his hand on the knife beneath his shirt, John moved over to the boy.

  It was long after dark when Carter climbed up the ship’s side to see candlelight flowing under the cabin door. He entered to find Van Hesston sitting on the cot.

  ‘John,’ the captain exclaimed. ‘I’ve been waiting for you. I have good news: we are chartered for the new world, the Dutch colonies.’ He stopped and looked down at Carter’s britches. ‘Why, John, is that blood?’

  Carter flashed his sparkling smile. ‘An animal, Captain,’ he said. ‘But this is wonderful news, is it not? When do we leave?’

  The answer to John’s question was four months later. They took the Delft to the island of Texel.

  Texel was an island with a hole in the middle: a large shallow landlocked bay that dried out at low tide. Houses clustered round the bay and there was a shipyard at one end. The Delft entered through a narrow cut and was taken directly to the yard.

  Once there the rig was sent down and the ship hauled out. Repairs to hull and spars were carried out and the hull coated with fresh tar. Extra cabins were built into the forward hold and ports cut into the rails to house four cannon. On the main deck forward pens were built for livestock.

  The fluyt would be second ship for the coming voyage carrying supplies and equipment for the colony. The principal ship arrived in late October: she was a fine-looking snow.

  John walked round the harbour to take a look at her. The topgallants she set and the rake of her masts promised a fast ship. John counted twelve cannon. The Amsterdam made the Delft look like the workhorse she was.

  The following week the new crew signed on. Most of the old crew had no interest in the new world.

  John had asked for the mate’s job, but with a smile Van Hesston had said not yet. There were twice as many seamen as before. The new first officer was a skinny, sour-faced man who Carter immediately disliked.

  As stores, tools and all manner of goods were loaded into the hold, a procession of well-dressed people began to arrive and take lodgings in the town.

  Van Hesston attended meetings on board the Amsterdam, afterwards telling John that her captain was a well-bred, impatient man and that in his opinion all was taking too long.

  By mid-November all the Amsterdam’s people had moved on board her, the pens on the Delft’s deck had filled with goats and chickens, and both ships prepared for sea.

  As they sailed through the narrow channel to the German sea, crowds of people waved and a band played.

  ‘A good enough start and a fair wind,’ Van Hesston commented.

  Once into the channel between England and France, however, the breeze backed to the southwest. The Amsterdam immediately showed her sailing ability, proving much more close winded than the fluyt.

  After four days of almost no progress, it was decided to anchor and wait for a fair wind, much to the Amsterdam captain’s annoyance.

  When the wind remained foul for the next ten days it was decided that the ships would proceed independently with an agreed rendezvous in the Indies.

  As they watched the Amsterdam sail away, Van Hesston spat over the side and said, ‘Good riddance.’

  What had started as a great adventure soon turned into a gruelling task.

  The weather was against them as they worked their way south, with headwinds and gales; the expected northwesterly never came. Instead southerly and southwesterly winds plagued them from the very beginning. A full gale as they approached the Portuguese coast killed most of the livestock causing Van Hesston to consider putting in to Vigo. Unsure of his reception with the current Spanish situation, however, he decided against it.

  ‘I should be six hundred miles west of here by now,’ he told John Carter.

  After almost four weeks of bad weather they at last found a northerly breeze, sending them on their way to the southwest. For twelve days it seemed that the lord had blessed them and then the wind fell away.

  Now the heat began to be a problem, with the ship rolling from beam end to beam end and the gear fracking and chaffing. They stowed all sail to minimize the damage and waited for the wind.

  The lack of fresh food and the strange taste of the drinking water led to grumbling amongst the crew. On investigation the water barrels were found to be foul with a dark weed-like growth. With no alternative, the captain told them that all was fine and the weed was harmless.

  John Carter had stowed food and water in the cabin as soon as things had started to go wrong; he now added flagons of wine to his hoard. He also loaded his two pistols and hid a cutlass under the bed.

  ‘The crew are all fine,’ Van Hesston told him. ‘Don’t worry. Anyway we have to go on; it’s too far to turn back.’

  At last the wind came back and from the right direction. As they set all plain sail, the crew cheered up and began talking and laughing again. Two weeks later they could see the bottom of the water barrels, however, and what water was there was almost solid with weed.

  ‘Don’t worry, we will sight the islands within days,’ the captain assured them and true to his word on the evening of the fourth day land was sighted: a mountainous island low on the horizon.

  At the same time the lookout called their attention to a ship hull up and moving towards them.

  ‘I think it was a ketch,’ Van Hesston said. Night had closed in hiding both land and ship.

  ‘No matter, we’ll probably never know; she will be long gone at first light, but if it makes you happy, wear your pretty pistols in the morning.’

  John wore his pretty pistols and his knife and cutlass. He was also the first to see the ketch close by to windward and bearing down on them in the first light of dawn. As the crew screamed the alarm and Van Hesston ran on deck, John made some quick plans for his future.

  The ketch was crowded with savage-looking men, armed to the teeth, more than a match for the Delft’s crew. John stepped up behind his captain, friend and benefactor, and pushing him onto the capping rail cut his throat in full view of the ketch’s crew. He held him in place as his blood spurted into the air and then let him fall to the deck.

  The mate ran aft towards him and John, with a smile on his face, shot him in the chest. At that moment the pirate ketch ran alongside.

  The pirates swarmed across the deck. The Delft’s crew offered no resistance as they were herded against the larboard rail.

  A big, dirty, overweight man swaggered up to John Carter. ‘I guess you want to join,’ he said with a broad grin. ‘Well, I’m the captain here and I decide who joins. Where’s the gold?’

  Carter walked over to Van Hesston’s body and cut the blood-soaked line that held a key round his neck. ‘This way,’ he said, pointing to the cabin door. Inside he pulled out the strong box and opened it.

  The pirate looked in. ‘Is your second pistol loaded?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ replied Carter.

  ‘Well, load the other one,’ said the pirate as he locked the strong box. ‘Nobody comes in here but me.’

  The two ships were sailed to the lee side of the island, where in a sheltered bay surrounded by green hills they were lashed together and anchored.

  The ships’ supplies of gin were then taken to the beach, where a large fire was lit after which the Delft’s crew was taken care of. Some begged to join, some screamed for mercy; all died. The ship’s cook was roasted on the fire, which the pirates thought very funny; some were shot, others drowned, the younger ones kept to be played with and then slaughtered. The entertainment ended when the last pirate fell drunk onto the sand.

  John Carter watched from the
Delft’s cabin, where he still guarded the gold. The crew’s end meant nothing to him, although the cook was a waste; his food was not bad.

  The next morning the pirates began pulling the Delft’s cargo up onto the deck; in fact, there was little of use to men like them. All the goods that could be sold for good money in the colonies were left where they fell. They loaded the salt pork and beef, took canvas and powder – the shot was of the wrong size – and stripped the ship of any trinkets they found.

  As they worked the gin poured out of them in sweat; the smell was strong.

  The men themselves were of many races and colours and to John’s surprise they began talking to him in an apologetic way, as if ashamed of their actions. He laughed to himself. These tigers were kittens when sober.

  The captain, however, was a swaggering fool, sober or drunk. He spent his time making stupid jokes whilst getting in everybody’s way. He had a weak-looking boy, with dirty blond hair almost to his waist, who followed him around laughing when he thought he should and jumping whenever his captain spoke.

  The next day they left, leaving the Delft swinging to her anchor, hatches open and a fortune in trade goods lying across her decks.

  They sailed slowly north through the chain of islands looking for prey.

  In a quiet moment, as the captain stood beside him, John asked about Spanish gold. The captain roared with laughter.

  ‘If you want to take one of those galleons with a ketch,’ he laughed, ‘you can leave me on the beach.’ John thought that might be a good idea.

  The next ship they boarded was a small local schooner with a cargo of malaises and rum.

  Once again all got drunk, with the exception of John, and spent time abusing the three native crew.

  It seemed to John that there was little profit in this. He didn’t care about the killings; in fact, it was quite interesting to watch but he had always been told about the wealth that pirates amassed and this was not what he had expected.

  The next day the captain and his friend began taunting John about his not drinking, asking if pretty boys were afraid to get drunk. Perhaps he thought he would lose his virginity if he took a drink. John said nothing, which encouraged them to greater efforts.