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doesnotkneelWhen Edward awoke, he was on the floor of what looked like the lower deck of a galleon. A large galleon, it was, the kind that looked like it was used to transport... people. His legs were gripped by iron bilboes — big, immovable manacles that were scattered all around the deck, some empty, some not.
Not far away he could make out more bodies in the gloom of the deck. More men back there, at a guess maybe a dozen or so, shackled just as he was, but in what sort of shape it was difficult to tell from the low groans and mumblings that reached his ears. At the other end of the deck was piled the captives’ possessions — clothes, boots, hats, leather belts, packs and chests.
This lower deck had a smell all its own. The smell of misery. The smell of fear.
A voice said, “Eat it fast,” and a wooden bowl landed with a dull thump by Edward's bare feet before the black-leather boots of a guard retreated. He saw sunlight from a hatch and heard the clip-clop of a ladder being climbed.
Inside the bowl sat a dry flour biscuit and a splodge of oatmeal. Not far away sat a black man, and, like Edward, he was eyeing the food dubiously.
“You hungry?” Edward asked him.
He said nothing, made no move to reach for the food. Instead he reached to the manacles at his feet and began to work at them, on his face an expression of profound concentration.
At first Edward thought he was wasting his time, but as the man's fingers worked, sliding between his feet and the irons, his eyes went to Ed. Though he said nothing, Edward thought he saw in them the ghost of painful experience. His hands went to his mouth and for a moment he looked like a cat cleaning itself, until the same hand dipped into the oatmeal, mixing the goo inside with saliva and then using it to lubricate his foot in the manacle.
Then Edward knew what he was doing and could only watch in admiration and hope.
Try. He looked up at Edward, silenced any encouragement before it even left his lips, then twisted and pulled at the same time.
The man would have yelled in pain if he wasn’t concentrating on keeping so quiet, and his foot, when it came free of the leg-iron, was covered in a revolting mixture of blood and spit and oatmeal. But it was free and neither of them wanted to eat the oatmeal anyway.
He glanced back up the deck towards the ladder and both steeled themselves against the appearance of a guard, then he began working at the other foot and was soon free. Crouched on the wood with his head cocked, he listened as footsteps from above them seemed to move towards the hatch, then, thankfully, moved away again.
Was the man simply going to leave Edward there? After all, they were strangers, he owed Edward nothing. Why should he waste time and endanger his own bid for freedom by helping Ed?
But Edward’d been about to let him eat the oatmeal and apparently that counted for something, because in the next instant, after a moment’s hesitation — perhaps he wondered himself about the wisdom of helping — he scrambled over, checked the shackles, then hurried over to an unseen section of the deck behind him, returning with keys.
"My name is Adewalé," he said, as he opened the shackles. Edward thanked Adewalé quietly, rubbed his own ankles and whispered, “Now, what’s your plan, mate?”
“Steal a ship,” he said simply.
Edward liked the sound of that.
He dashed over to the pile to retrieve his robes and hidden blade, and added a pair of leather braces and a leather jacket to his ensemble.
Meanwhile Adewalé was using the keys to release the prisoners. Edward snatched another set from a nail on the wall and joined him.
“There’s a catch to this favour,” Ed told the first man he came to, as his fingers worked the key in his restraints. “You’re sailing with me.”
“I’d follow you to hell for this, mate...”
Now there were more men standing on the deck and free of shackles than there were still restrained, and perhaps those above had heard something, because suddenly the hatch was flung open and the first of the guards thundered down the steps with his sword drawn.
“Hey,” he said, but “hey” turned out to be his final word. Edward'd already fitted his hidden blade. It was strange - though he'd only worn it for days at best, it felt somehow familiar, as if he'd had it before.
He chose not to think about it. With a flick of his forearm he engaged the blade, then stepped forward and introduced the blade to the guard, driving it deep into his sternum.
It wasn’t exactly stealthy or subtle. Edward stabbed him so hard that the blade punctured his back and pinned him to the steps until Ed wrenched him free. Now Edward saw the boots of a second soldier and the tip of his sword as reinforcements arrived. Back-handed, he sliced the blade just below the soldier's knees and he screamed and toppled, losing his sword and his balance, one of his lower legs cut to the bone and pumping blood to the deck as he joined his mate on the wood.
By now it was a full-scale mutiny, and the freed men ran to the piles of confiscated goods and reclaimed their own gear, arming themselves with cutlasses and pistols, pulling boots on. Edward saw squabbles breaking out — already! — over whose items were whose, but there was no time to play arbitrator. A clip around the ear was all it took. Above them they heard the sounds of rushing feet and panicked shouting in Spanish as the guards prepared themselves for the uprising.
Just then the ship was suddenly rocked by what Edward knew was a gust of wind. Across the deck he caught Adewalé’s eye, who mouthed something. One word: “Hurricane.”
Again it was as though the ship had been rammed as a second gust of wind hit it. Now time was against them and the battle needed to be won fast. They had to take their own ship, because these winds, furious as they were, were nothing — nothing — compared to the force of a full-scale hurricane.
You could time its arrival by counting the delay between the first gusts. You could see the direction the hurricane was coming from. And if you were an experienced seaman, then you could use the hurricane to your advantage. So as long as they set sail soon, they could outrun any pursuers, Edward realized.
Yes, that was it.
Use the hurricane, outrun the Spanish. A few words in Adewalé’s ear and Edward's new friend nodded and began to spread news of the plan among the rest of the men.
They would be expecting an uncoordinated, haphazard attack through the main hatch of the quarter-deck.
Let’s make them pay.
Directing some of the men to stay near the foot of the steps and make the noise of men preparing to attack, Edward led the rest to the stern, where they broke through into the sick bay, then stealthily climbed steps to the galley.
In the next instant they poured out onto the main deck, and sure enough the Spanish soldiers stood unawares, their backs turned and their muskets trained on the quarter-deck hatch.
They were careless idiots who had not only turned their backs but brought muskets to a sword-fight, and they paid for it with steel in their guts and across their throats. For a moment the quarter-deck was a battlefield as Edward's new men ruthlessly pressed home the advantage their surprise attack gave them, until at their feet lay dead or dying Spaniards, while the last of them threw themselves overboard in panic, and they stood and caught our breath.
Though the sails were furled, the ship rocked as it was punched by another gust of wind. The hurricane would be upon them any minute. From other ships along the harbour belonging to the treasure fleet, they saw soldiers handing out pikes and muskets as they began to prepare themselves for incoming attack.
They needed a faster ship and Adewalé had his eye on one, already leading a group of their men across the gang-board and to the quay. Soldiers on the harbour died by their blades. There was a crack of muskets and some of the men fell, but already they were rushing the next galleon beside us, a beautiful-looking ship—the ship Edward was confident would soon be his.
Then they were up on it, just as the sky darkened, a suitable backdrop for the battle and a terrifying augury of what was to come.
Wind whipped at them, growing stronger, hammering them in repeated gusts. You could see the Spanish soldiers were in disarray, as terrified of the approaching storm as they were of the escaped prisoners, unable to avoid the onslaught of either.
The battle was bloody and vicious, but over quickly. For a moment Edward wondered if Adewalé would want to assume command; indeed he had every right to do so — this man had not only set him free but led the charge that helped win us the boat. If he did decide to captain his own ship, Ed would have to respect that, find his own command and go his own way.
But for the moment, Adewalé said nothing.
They set sail just as the masts unfurled and the first tendrils of the coming storm fattened our sails. Cross-winds battered them as they left the harbour and Edward glanced behind from my place at the tiller to see the remaining ships of the treasure fleet being assaulted by wind and rain. At first their masts swung crazily from side to side like uncontrolled pendulums, then they were clashing as the storm hit. Without ready sails they were sitting ducks and it gladdened Edward's heart to see them knocked into matchwood by the arriving hurricane.
The air seemed to grow colder and colder around us. Above were clouds gathering, scudding fast across the sky and blocking out the sun. Next they were lashed with wind and rain and sea-spray. Around them the waves seemed to grow and grow, towering mountains of water with foaming peaks, every one of them about to drown them, tossing them from one huge canyon of sea to another.
The poultry were washed overboard. Men hung on to cabin doors. Edward heard screams as unlucky deck-hands were snatched off the ship. The galley fire was extinguished. All hatches and cabin doors battened down. Only the bravest and most skilful men dared scale the rat-lines to try and manage the canvas.
The foremast snapped and Edward feared for the mainmast and mizzen, but they held, thank God, and he gave silent praise for this fast, plucky ship that had been brought to them by fate.
The sky was a patchwork of black cloud that every now and then parted to allow rays of sunshine through, as if the sun were being kept prisoner behind them; as though the weather was taunting us. Still they kept going, with three men at the tiller and men hanging on to the rigging as though trying to fly a huge, abominable kite, desperately trying to keep them ahead of the storm. To slow down would be to surrender to it. To surrender to it would be to die.
But they didn’t die, not that day.
And when Edward finally turned to Adewale again, said, "By god, we pulled this one straight from the teeth of Neptune..." and introduced himself, they were on quiet seas. Where, he wasn't certain, but the sun was shining full on his face.
"Ever been to Nassau, Adewale?" he asked.
"Not yet."
Edward leaned against the side of the ship, testing the strength of the wood. Testing, maybe, something else. "By god, she took some knocks, yeah?" he said. "I think I'll keep her." He pushed away. "All hands aft, boys! We're taking this one home!"
He took the wheel with a smile. "I'm calling her the Jackdaw," he said, "For a sly bird I loved as a child back in Swansea."
Ade's mouth curved. "A dark little creature, no?"
Edward paused, kept one hand on the wheel, but turned to face the man. "Does it rub you wrong that I took this brig for my own?" he said.
What followed was a dark chuckle, wry but not ill-meant. "It is the sort of rub I've learned to endure, sailing among faces of such... fairness," Ade said.
Right. Edward nodded, turning back towards the sea. "It's true," he said, "Most of these men wouldn't accept you for a Captain." He paused. "So what fair role would complement such... unfairness?"
"I'll be your Quartermaster," said Ade, following Edward's gaze towards the waves. "Nothing less."
"All right."
[[ nfb, nfi, some violence and casual white boy racism under the cut. taken and adapted from the novelization (which deftly dances around the latter) and the game (which does not). ]]
Not far away he could make out more bodies in the gloom of the deck. More men back there, at a guess maybe a dozen or so, shackled just as he was, but in what sort of shape it was difficult to tell from the low groans and mumblings that reached his ears. At the other end of the deck was piled the captives’ possessions — clothes, boots, hats, leather belts, packs and chests.
This lower deck had a smell all its own. The smell of misery. The smell of fear.
A voice said, “Eat it fast,” and a wooden bowl landed with a dull thump by Edward's bare feet before the black-leather boots of a guard retreated. He saw sunlight from a hatch and heard the clip-clop of a ladder being climbed.
Inside the bowl sat a dry flour biscuit and a splodge of oatmeal. Not far away sat a black man, and, like Edward, he was eyeing the food dubiously.
“You hungry?” Edward asked him.
He said nothing, made no move to reach for the food. Instead he reached to the manacles at his feet and began to work at them, on his face an expression of profound concentration.
At first Edward thought he was wasting his time, but as the man's fingers worked, sliding between his feet and the irons, his eyes went to Ed. Though he said nothing, Edward thought he saw in them the ghost of painful experience. His hands went to his mouth and for a moment he looked like a cat cleaning itself, until the same hand dipped into the oatmeal, mixing the goo inside with saliva and then using it to lubricate his foot in the manacle.
Then Edward knew what he was doing and could only watch in admiration and hope.
Try. He looked up at Edward, silenced any encouragement before it even left his lips, then twisted and pulled at the same time.
The man would have yelled in pain if he wasn’t concentrating on keeping so quiet, and his foot, when it came free of the leg-iron, was covered in a revolting mixture of blood and spit and oatmeal. But it was free and neither of them wanted to eat the oatmeal anyway.
He glanced back up the deck towards the ladder and both steeled themselves against the appearance of a guard, then he began working at the other foot and was soon free. Crouched on the wood with his head cocked, he listened as footsteps from above them seemed to move towards the hatch, then, thankfully, moved away again.
Was the man simply going to leave Edward there? After all, they were strangers, he owed Edward nothing. Why should he waste time and endanger his own bid for freedom by helping Ed?
But Edward’d been about to let him eat the oatmeal and apparently that counted for something, because in the next instant, after a moment’s hesitation — perhaps he wondered himself about the wisdom of helping — he scrambled over, checked the shackles, then hurried over to an unseen section of the deck behind him, returning with keys.
"My name is Adewalé," he said, as he opened the shackles. Edward thanked Adewalé quietly, rubbed his own ankles and whispered, “Now, what’s your plan, mate?”
“Steal a ship,” he said simply.
Edward liked the sound of that.
He dashed over to the pile to retrieve his robes and hidden blade, and added a pair of leather braces and a leather jacket to his ensemble.
Meanwhile Adewalé was using the keys to release the prisoners. Edward snatched another set from a nail on the wall and joined him.
“There’s a catch to this favour,” Ed told the first man he came to, as his fingers worked the key in his restraints. “You’re sailing with me.”
“I’d follow you to hell for this, mate...”
Now there were more men standing on the deck and free of shackles than there were still restrained, and perhaps those above had heard something, because suddenly the hatch was flung open and the first of the guards thundered down the steps with his sword drawn.
“Hey,” he said, but “hey” turned out to be his final word. Edward'd already fitted his hidden blade. It was strange - though he'd only worn it for days at best, it felt somehow familiar, as if he'd had it before.
He chose not to think about it. With a flick of his forearm he engaged the blade, then stepped forward and introduced the blade to the guard, driving it deep into his sternum.
It wasn’t exactly stealthy or subtle. Edward stabbed him so hard that the blade punctured his back and pinned him to the steps until Ed wrenched him free. Now Edward saw the boots of a second soldier and the tip of his sword as reinforcements arrived. Back-handed, he sliced the blade just below the soldier's knees and he screamed and toppled, losing his sword and his balance, one of his lower legs cut to the bone and pumping blood to the deck as he joined his mate on the wood.
By now it was a full-scale mutiny, and the freed men ran to the piles of confiscated goods and reclaimed their own gear, arming themselves with cutlasses and pistols, pulling boots on. Edward saw squabbles breaking out — already! — over whose items were whose, but there was no time to play arbitrator. A clip around the ear was all it took. Above them they heard the sounds of rushing feet and panicked shouting in Spanish as the guards prepared themselves for the uprising.
Just then the ship was suddenly rocked by what Edward knew was a gust of wind. Across the deck he caught Adewalé’s eye, who mouthed something. One word: “Hurricane.”
Again it was as though the ship had been rammed as a second gust of wind hit it. Now time was against them and the battle needed to be won fast. They had to take their own ship, because these winds, furious as they were, were nothing — nothing — compared to the force of a full-scale hurricane.
You could time its arrival by counting the delay between the first gusts. You could see the direction the hurricane was coming from. And if you were an experienced seaman, then you could use the hurricane to your advantage. So as long as they set sail soon, they could outrun any pursuers, Edward realized.
Yes, that was it.
Use the hurricane, outrun the Spanish. A few words in Adewalé’s ear and Edward's new friend nodded and began to spread news of the plan among the rest of the men.
They would be expecting an uncoordinated, haphazard attack through the main hatch of the quarter-deck.
Let’s make them pay.
Directing some of the men to stay near the foot of the steps and make the noise of men preparing to attack, Edward led the rest to the stern, where they broke through into the sick bay, then stealthily climbed steps to the galley.
In the next instant they poured out onto the main deck, and sure enough the Spanish soldiers stood unawares, their backs turned and their muskets trained on the quarter-deck hatch.
They were careless idiots who had not only turned their backs but brought muskets to a sword-fight, and they paid for it with steel in their guts and across their throats. For a moment the quarter-deck was a battlefield as Edward's new men ruthlessly pressed home the advantage their surprise attack gave them, until at their feet lay dead or dying Spaniards, while the last of them threw themselves overboard in panic, and they stood and caught our breath.
Though the sails were furled, the ship rocked as it was punched by another gust of wind. The hurricane would be upon them any minute. From other ships along the harbour belonging to the treasure fleet, they saw soldiers handing out pikes and muskets as they began to prepare themselves for incoming attack.
They needed a faster ship and Adewalé had his eye on one, already leading a group of their men across the gang-board and to the quay. Soldiers on the harbour died by their blades. There was a crack of muskets and some of the men fell, but already they were rushing the next galleon beside us, a beautiful-looking ship—the ship Edward was confident would soon be his.
Then they were up on it, just as the sky darkened, a suitable backdrop for the battle and a terrifying augury of what was to come.
Wind whipped at them, growing stronger, hammering them in repeated gusts. You could see the Spanish soldiers were in disarray, as terrified of the approaching storm as they were of the escaped prisoners, unable to avoid the onslaught of either.
The battle was bloody and vicious, but over quickly. For a moment Edward wondered if Adewalé would want to assume command; indeed he had every right to do so — this man had not only set him free but led the charge that helped win us the boat. If he did decide to captain his own ship, Ed would have to respect that, find his own command and go his own way.
But for the moment, Adewalé said nothing.
They set sail just as the masts unfurled and the first tendrils of the coming storm fattened our sails. Cross-winds battered them as they left the harbour and Edward glanced behind from my place at the tiller to see the remaining ships of the treasure fleet being assaulted by wind and rain. At first their masts swung crazily from side to side like uncontrolled pendulums, then they were clashing as the storm hit. Without ready sails they were sitting ducks and it gladdened Edward's heart to see them knocked into matchwood by the arriving hurricane.
The air seemed to grow colder and colder around us. Above were clouds gathering, scudding fast across the sky and blocking out the sun. Next they were lashed with wind and rain and sea-spray. Around them the waves seemed to grow and grow, towering mountains of water with foaming peaks, every one of them about to drown them, tossing them from one huge canyon of sea to another.
The poultry were washed overboard. Men hung on to cabin doors. Edward heard screams as unlucky deck-hands were snatched off the ship. The galley fire was extinguished. All hatches and cabin doors battened down. Only the bravest and most skilful men dared scale the rat-lines to try and manage the canvas.
The foremast snapped and Edward feared for the mainmast and mizzen, but they held, thank God, and he gave silent praise for this fast, plucky ship that had been brought to them by fate.
The sky was a patchwork of black cloud that every now and then parted to allow rays of sunshine through, as if the sun were being kept prisoner behind them; as though the weather was taunting us. Still they kept going, with three men at the tiller and men hanging on to the rigging as though trying to fly a huge, abominable kite, desperately trying to keep them ahead of the storm. To slow down would be to surrender to it. To surrender to it would be to die.
But they didn’t die, not that day.
And when Edward finally turned to Adewale again, said, "By god, we pulled this one straight from the teeth of Neptune..." and introduced himself, they were on quiet seas. Where, he wasn't certain, but the sun was shining full on his face.
"Ever been to Nassau, Adewale?" he asked.
"Not yet."
Edward leaned against the side of the ship, testing the strength of the wood. Testing, maybe, something else. "By god, she took some knocks, yeah?" he said. "I think I'll keep her." He pushed away. "All hands aft, boys! We're taking this one home!"
He took the wheel with a smile. "I'm calling her the Jackdaw," he said, "For a sly bird I loved as a child back in Swansea."
Ade's mouth curved. "A dark little creature, no?"
Edward paused, kept one hand on the wheel, but turned to face the man. "Does it rub you wrong that I took this brig for my own?" he said.
What followed was a dark chuckle, wry but not ill-meant. "It is the sort of rub I've learned to endure, sailing among faces of such... fairness," Ade said.
Right. Edward nodded, turning back towards the sea. "It's true," he said, "Most of these men wouldn't accept you for a Captain." He paused. "So what fair role would complement such... unfairness?"
"I'll be your Quartermaster," said Ade, following Edward's gaze towards the waves. "Nothing less."
"All right."
[[ nfb, nfi, some violence and casual white boy racism under the cut. taken and adapted from the novelization (which deftly dances around the latter) and the game (which does not). ]]
