When we met Baltizar's Smoke ‘n’ Oakum, a ship of thirty-eight guns and a crew of five-score buccaneers, somewhere in the latitudes south of Cuba, the arithmetic of odds offset the triple courage of our English tars. Captain Hakes was also unaware that the Smoke ‘n’ Oakum was rotting from keel to the gunwales, and the crew was fighting desperate to take a ship that wasn't sinking.
I performed surgery for sixteen hours after the Worcester was taken. I became so exhausted that I required the surviving ship's boy to mark wounded limbs with an X so I would not amputate the wrong ones. The Worcester had gone into battle with a crew of fifty-two, twenty-eight of whom were now dead, including Hakes and his first mate. Twelve more were severely wounded.
Of the pirates, fifty-three were dead or overboard, and another score had need of my skills—a high price for their new brig. Another eighteen men from both parties would die that night, some on the table before me, some in the mortal hour before dawn.
While I did my work across a bloody slab made from three sea chests, the buccaneers transferred stores from their failing craft to the Worcester and repaired the damage to the ship, spars, and sails, putting our own hale crew members to work. The dead, including Captain Hakes, were wrapped in sailcloth and dropped overboard with cannonballs tied to their shrouds. The screams of my patients were punctuated by the shuffle of goods and men on deck, and the occasional splash of the dead dropping into the sea.
When I came on deck at dawn, I saw a transformed vessel, as near to trim as it had been before battle, except that our sailors were now replaced by buccaneers dressed in a mix of rags and finery. Here the long coat of a sea officer over ragged drawers, no shirt, and a brace of pistols; there a fellow in an embroidered gold jacket with a filthy kerchief on his toothless head. I knew enough by then to see that they were a seaworthy bunch of villains.
The man in the motley coat approached me where I stood by the starboard rail, and nodded in a kindly way. As I remarked at first sight of him, he was of cheerful visage and was a well-knit fellow of about thirty, with long moustaches and a crooked smile.
“All sew'd and bandag'd, yours and ours?” said he.
“Yes, I've done what can be done.”
He drew his pistol, “Then you're done.”
There is something to be said for exhaustion: it creates a sanguine acceptance, a carelessness. I struck the pistol from his hand before I knew what I was about, and was bearing him to the deck before he knew what I was about. He was the stronger, and despite my advantage from being on top, he was strangling me.
I still had a lancet thrust into my belt. I drew this and slashed at him, more to frighten than to harm, and he frantically threw me off. He rose, half-drawing a dirk, and I fearfully swung the small blade at him again. He staggered back, blood flowing down the hand he'd clapped to his face, and we both stared stupidly at his nose, which lay on the deck.
I became aware of the crowd around us, including the Captain, who picked up the fallen pistol and aimed it at my belly. He pulled the trigger.
4
A few observations on the nature of rough humor and the compromises we make to survive.
Having spent my share of time among some of the worst of humankind, I must insist that there is no greater evil in the world than a humorist who engages in practical jokes. Noseless Bill, formerly known as Patchwork Bill, was one of these creatures, who thought it witty to slice through the cord of sleeping seaman's hammock or piss in someone's grog or fire an empty pistol at a victim who believed it was loaded.
When Captain Baltizar pulled that trigger and I discovered that the gun had powder but no shot, I felt foolish for a moment, and then I felt rage. If Patchwork Bill thought there was humor in threatening a man, then the loss of a nose was the least he deserved.
The crew seemed to think so as well. Patchwork Bill had been popular among the rougher crew, who admired his pranks to avoid being victims of them, but all on deck found his maiming a cause for hilarity. Surrounded by laughing pirates, my spirit finally gave out and I sank to the deck. The last I heard before fainting were Bill's cries that I sew his nose back on.
I awoke in a hammock in what had been Capt. Hakes's cabin, and my first sight was of Baltizar devouring a ham and ship's biscuits at table. I must have made a noise, for he looked up, poured a cup of grog to which he added water, and brought it to me. He held the cup until I drank it down in short gulps. He then helped me to a bench at the tableside.
“You need to drink more, and eat, even if it's just a biscuit or two.” He slid one towards me. “I've already tapped the weevils out of that one, can't be more than one or two in it.”
I poured myself more rum. “How long was I unconscious?”
“Most of yesterday and last night. It's coming on dawn now.”
The captain was somewhere between forty and fifty and of dark complexion. His beard was braided, he was broad shouldered, and his voice had the rough deepness of a smoker of tobacco. He had a chronic limp in his right leg which did little to impede his dexterity. I never discovered his real name, nor the origin of “Baltizar.” Some said it was because he was of Moorish descent. Some said he was once as rich as a Biblical king. I found the first explanation to be pure guesswork. I detected a Scotch burr to the captain's accent, when in his cups, that suggested the highlands more than Arabia. He was, I would learn, an expert navigator (a rarity among buccaneers), a lethal hand with a sword, and in most ways less bloodthirsty than Captain Hakes.
“I owe ye some thanks, Dr. Lemuel. There's a dozen of my men who would be at the bottom without you,” Baltizar said.
“I do what I can to ease suffering, and saved your men so I could save my own.” I attempted to sound haughty, but the cup in my hand shook.
“A good turn is a good turn, despite the cause,” he said. “I've asked your crewmen about you. You killed a man in England, and are probably an outlaw. No family, no prospects, as you're a bastard—but you have talent.”
The only person to whom I had told my story had been Captain Hakes, but it was impossible to have a private conversation on a brig thirty yards long.
“You seem an ideal candidate to join my crew,” he continued. “Nine of your men already have. There's little difference in being a surgeon for a privateer and being a surgeon among buccaneers. Except for more silver.”
I protested, and he parried each argument. In the end we agreed that I would continue my duties as surgeon until we reached a neutral port, to earn my keep and the safety of the remaining crew who hadn't joined. But I knew that we would have this argument again.
The captain allowed me to keep my hammock in his cabin for the remainder of our time together. At first I thought it was because he wished to convince me by proximity to join him. But it didn't take me long to realize that he was protecting me from Noseless Bill.
5
Of the nature and business of piracy.
Pirates are a lawless lot, at least where the rules of civilization are concerned. Any ship is fair prey, crews that resist are cheerfully massacred, and cargo and sometimes ships are taken. The Brethren of the Coast have their own code, with some variation from captain to captain and ship to ship. These were the laws that Captain Baltizar and his men subscribed to:
I. Every man has a vote in affairs of moment, except during engagement with the enemy; has equal title to the fresh provisions, or strong liquors, and may use them at pleasure, unless a scarcity makes it necessary, for the good of all, to vote a retrenchment.
II. No person is to game at cards or dice for money aboard ship.
III. To keep their muskets, pistols, and cutlass clean and fit for service.
IV. No boy or woman is to be allowed amongst