The Pirate Captain - By Kerry Lynne Page 0,55

Nathan’s mouth wasn’t tobacco, but something between leather and a stick. “What is that?”

Apparently he had forgotten it was there, for it took him a moment to take her meaning.

“This?” he asked, holding it up. “Charqui. Some of the islands around these parts still keep the boucan ways of curing meat. ’Tis done on racks over a slow fire, smoked.”

Nathan regarded the woodish-looking strip and made a face. “’Tis far better than salt horse.”

Cate couldn’t help but smile. He was referring to the mariner’s beef or pork, which went to sea packed in salt in three-hundred-pound casks. The meat was soaked in harness caskets, and then boiled in order to render it edible.

“Bite?” he asked, thrusting the brown strip toward her.

She felt like a dog gnawing on a bone—not to mention a bit ungraceful—as she took off a small bit of the other end. The texture being much like that piece of leather, she shifted it to the corner of her mouth.

“Just hold it there and let it soften,” he said, smiling at seeing her struggle with it.

The meat—beef, goat, or pig, she couldn’t tell—was pungent with spices, the smoky taste reminiscent of ham or bacon.

Nathan smiled tolerantly, something he seemed to be doing with frequency, and returned to the subject at hand. “’Tis bad luck to have a dead man’s dunnage about. The sooner it no longer exists, the better. They’ve already drawn for their numbers…where they sleep and their mess number,” he clarified to her deepening confusion. “Empty spaces, sleeping or at table, might invite the dead to linger.”

“But if it’s such bad luck, why don’t you just throw it overboard?” The whole thing struck her as ghoulish. The bodies barely had time to reach the bottom of the sea.

“And waste perfectly good goods?” he asked around his impromptu meal. His eyes rounded in shocked indignation. “’Twould be a sad commentary, indeed. That rigging knife of Wiggins’ was the envy of the ship. I’ll give eight,” he shouted to the auctioneer. “And that pistol. ’Twas Croftsford’s reward for spotting a prize first. And there’s a perfectly good rain tarp. Twelve,” he called louder.

“’Tis all for a good cause,” Nathan said cheerfully in the face of Cate’s distress. “The money is collected and sent to the family, if there is any,” he added with a dubious frown. Then he brightened. “If not, ’tis kept until the next time ashore and pays for drinks all around. Seventeen! Is there anything you desire?” he asked, gesturing toward the forecastle.

“No,” was all Cate could manage. The chunk of meat was now malleable, but still chewy.

“Sold!” came from the forecastle.

“Ah, well,” Nathan sighed. “Be that as it may, the sooner the better all around. Much to do. Bear a hand there,” he cried as he strolled down the deck.

The ship became a beehive, a place where every soul was occupied in one of three roles: sail, repair, or prepare. The boatswain and his mates labored at swaying up new spars, setting a jibbom, bending sails, and knotting and splicing a spider’s web of new rigging. Over and around them, the carpenter and his mates worked to reconstruct a section of mangled rail, shape a spar, topmast and wheels for a gun carriage, plug cannonball holes with great cone-shaped plugs, and rebuild two gun ports that had been blown into one. All the while, they were required to keep the two bilge pumps in working order to keep up with the rising water, over 20 inches in the well, at last report.

In the way of preparation, Mr. MacQuarrie, the Master Gunner, and his mates cleaned their respective instruments, swabbed, reamed touchholes, and chipped round shot. Shot garlands were filled, slow-match and wadding set at the ready. Cartouche boxes and shot bags were refilled. The armorer distributed weapons to the infirmed. Too well to be in their hammocks, but too injured to perform their regular duties, they were able to oil and clean pistols and muskets, and brighten blades.

“I thought you said the town was going to greet you with open arms,” she said as she and Nathan watched the rearmament.

“An over-confident pirate is a dead pirate.”

Desperation was the ultimate determining factor in the selection of which task she was assigned. It would seem a ship had two constants: leaks and miles of aging rope. Mariners being pragmatic creatures, they found a way that one could serve the other. And so she was sat on a low bench and introduced to the picking of oakum.

Nathan