LITMIR.BIZ

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into his pipe, the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile, exposing two missing front teeth.

      It was odd to think that the people in the drawing were probably adults now, Little Jane mused. Or perhaps they had never existed to begin with and were simply creations of Ishiro’s imagination. Yet somehow, she thought not. The missing front teeth of the older boy with the pipe, the crinkles around the smiling eyes of the fair-haired boy as he peeled potatoes, the sidelong glance of the dark eyed boy with the long eyelashes, even the distinct pattern on the potato-peel-filled cloth lying across their laps, seemed details too real to be mere fiction.

      “Who were they?” she asked her father.

      “Friends o’ mine,” mumbled Long John, his words uncharacteristically wistful and indistinct. “We was shipmates.”

      “Really?”

      “It was a long time ago. Before the loss of the Fleece and the Newton even.”

      Little Jane nodded solemnly. She couldn’t remember when she had first learned of the two lost ships, but the stories had always been there, embroidering the edges of her existence. One couldn’t serve long aboard the Pieces without hearing at least a little about the Newton and the Golden Fleece, the Pieces’ sister ships from long ago.

      Yet for all that, Little Jane had as yet to form a coherent picture of how the great disaster had occurred. Conversations had a tendency of cutting themselves short when talk began of the Newton and the Fleece. Too painful to sustain for very long. She supposed now was as good a time to ask as any. Somehow, looking at her father just then, she felt that for once in his life he might actually give her a straight answer.

      “What happened to the Fleece and the Newton, Papa?”

      “You know, darling.”

      “I forget. Papa, please.”

      Truth be told, Long John wasn’t sure he had a coherent picture himself of what exactly had happened that horrible day and he had actually been there. He’d turned it over so many times in his head, trying to figure out just where he’d gone wrong, but no matter how many different scenarios he danced like puppets across his mental stage, he still couldn’t figure it. Each choice he came up with still demanded a sacrifice of one kind or another. He had chosen with his heart. His sweet Bonnie Mary lived as a result, but others had not been as fortunate.

      “Tell me,” coaxed Little Jane.

      And with a sigh, he did.

      Chapter 9

      The Story of the Newton

      and the Golden Fleece

      “Back then, most of us sailed the seas as privateers for Britain as she fought first the thirteen colonies of America, and then Napoleon Bonaparte, from France. A privateer could make a fortune in that heady atmosphere, and toward the end of them Napoleon Wars, Captain Tom Bright had all of three ships under his command — the Newton, the Golden Fleece, and his powerful flagship, the Pieces of Eight. The Newton, she were a beautiful Norwegian cat, with one hundred men to crew ’er, the Pieces a sturdy custom frigate with all the trimmings and 180 men, and the Golden Fleece a speedy barque provencale, lateen-rigged with sixty men strong.”

      “And were you her captain?” asked Little Jane.

      “Oh, no,” laughed Long John. “Me and yer mum was just first officers then to Captain Bright aboard the Pieces. Fetzcaro Madsea and Ishiro Soo-Yun ran the other ships.”

      “Ishiro? A captain?”

      “Aye. Why? You think he were just a cook all his life? His first officers were Jang Kyung-Jae, Alberto Hanif, and Bill Chadwick, Bright’s own hand-picked men. Great sailors all — strong of body and mind, cunning in tactics, ferocious in battle — and all gone to the depths at Anguilla over a cargo of sugar what never was there. It’s enough to boggle the mind, even now.”

      Little Jane knew this much already. Anguilla was the only island in the Caribbean they never ventured to in their smuggling runs.

      “Old Captain Thomas Bright,” continued Long John, “he had it on a reliable source a supply ship from St. Maarten be stopping at Anguilla before heading off to France to deliver valuable goods and munitions to the French army.

      “We had them letters of marque from the king giving us permission to attack French vessels and take their goods. We was legal for a while. See, all the English cared about was stopping the loot from falling into the hands of Boney’s army. What us privateers wished to do with it, well, that were our own business so long as they got their cut o’ the take.

      “Now out about ten miles by Anguilla was this little island. L’Isle de Feaundy, just a big old piece of rock with a few trees and a fancy name, not more’n a hundred feet square. But the currents round Anguilla would always take you by that place, long as ye sailed up from the south. So we hid the Pieces and the Newton behind the north side of the island. We hid and we waited.

      “The captain sent the Golden Fleece out on reconnaissance flying no colours, disguising her as a fishing vessel. She were to sail round and then come warn us when the French ship was spotted to tell us what her bearing was. The Fleece were a small ship, but fast on the water. We thought even if the French figured out her little ruse, the Fleece could outrun them easy.”

      “And did she?”

      Long John smiled ruefully.

      “He were fed a load of hogwash, poor Captain Bright were. The story of the supply ship from St. Maarten were planted all over the ports. It were a ruse ya see, a scheme by the French to lure us English privateers into a trap. And we fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.”

      Little Jane began to regret she’d encouraged her father to discuss the subject. As he spoke, his ordinarily jolly countenance took on a gravity few ever saw. He looked suddenly … old. To Little Jane, her parents were like the weathered timbers of the Pieces of Eight itself: ageless and durable. Yet suddenly, here he was, every year telling upon his sunburnt face.

      “The Fleece were destroyed and never made it back to warn the Pieces or the Newton. Sixty men gone down with her. The French sent one man o’ war up from the south all heavy with cannon. We turns to fight and, despite the surprise, the tide of battle seemed to be turning in our favour until another man o’ war snuck down from the north and attacks the Newton. We was so busy fightin’ the first ship what had come in from the south we didn’t notice the second till it were too late. She were a monster, she was, bristling with cannons and sharp-shooters and the like. And our poor men right near exhausted by then.

      “Both French ships took the Newton, and we made like we was to flee, leaving them to concentrate on ’er. Then we tacked with a quick wind and turned about. They was surprised when we had at them then, all seventy guns spewing grapeshot, exploding shells, ball-and-chain and what have you, raking the deck of both French ships and the Newton all at once.” He looked down into his lap, unable to meet her eyes. “We was fighting for our lives, we was. French ship from the north we shot full of holes and she turned tail and run. French ship from the south we blasted and burnt to kingdom come.”

      “So you won, then?”

      “We beat them, aye. But we ain’t won to my mind. We all lost — far, far too much.” He gave a sorrowful shake of his thinning grey curls.

      “So many good men gone down to the depths. The Pieces herself barely survived. It ain’t never settled right on me what was done to the Newton, though Ishiro Soo-Yun himself once told me it were the only way. But the Newton were crabmeat after that and most of the men gone. We only managed to pluck a handful from the bloodbath of that boat, and then most of them was wounded. And not killed by the French even, but gunned down by us, their own mates, in the crossfire!

      “It were me and yer mum was at the helm, ya know, captains of the Pieces at the tail end of the battle. Aye, it’s true. Old Captain Bright, your grandpapa, he were gut shot when the Pieces came back for her second round with the French ships. And he weren’t the only one. Lots more injured

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