In Time for Christmas

[Blackbead]

Here be a sampling of a new short story from the currently untitled new anthology from Blackbead Books. If you liked the poetry and artwork in Raising Black Flags then you will love the new works from these same seadogs. The new book will include short stories, poetry and artwork. Expect new pieces from the likes of Diamond, Captain Emerald Shaunassey, "Slippery Jack" Beaver, Captain Jane Jasper, and Blackbead. We present here a short excerpt from "John Nagle", a short story, which will be included in the book, about a character who is a cross between a detective and a pirate . . .

“John Nagle” (An Excerpt)

By Stephen Sanders

©2009

"Batson! BATSON! Get in here before I have your skin peeled from your back for the slinking toad that you are!”

The shout was coming from the office at the end of the hall and I knew that I’d better comply or Captain Griffin would most assuredly carry out the fate which he had assigned me. I rose from the stool on which I had been sitting and, at a run, nearly flew down the hall to the open door. Arriving there, I was witness to a scene that was totally foreign to the Captain’s office and nature.

Captain Griffin was standing in front of his desk instead of sitting behind it. If this wasn’t unusual enough, in his chair, instead of the Captain, was a woman. And she was crying.

Standing next to the crying woman was an older man, dressed in the clothes of a laborer, perhaps even a smith. He was massive; he looked like he could take the building apart by pulling the pegs out with his bare hands and then breaking the beams in half across his thigh. If that wasn’t bad enough, the expression on his face suggested that he was only seconds away from making the decision to begin this previously described renovation project.

“Batson! Finally! You will, instantly, leave these premises and find, and then return with, Able Seaman Donald Driver. Bring him, immediately, to my cabin, er, office. Here. To this place.”

I had never seen the Captain so flustered. Whatever was happening was worse than being repeatedly raked by a French corvette, being almost awash in a gale storm, or finding oneself without a pistol in a public house full of Spaniards; all things I had survived at Captain Griffin’s side. In each of those occasions, the man had never blinked an eye but today he was positively stuttering.

“Captain,” spoke up the large man standing behind the desk, “I would take it as a kindness toward me and me daughter if ye’d ask this feller to be quiet about what ye’ve asked him to do.”

“I assure you, Mr. Black, my yeoman will act with the utmost discretion in this distasteful affair, er, that is to say, incident. I can also assure that I will see Driver hung from the nearest yardarm! To take a woman against her will, only the lowest knave . . .”

At that moment, I gasped, the girl started crying noisily, and her father let out a “Captain!” while eyeing me. I knew Donny Driver; my immediate reaction was that there was no way on Heaven or on Earth that he could ever do such a thing. I also knew Captain Griffin and if he believed this girl then Donny was as good as dancing the hempen jig, as the old hands say. But I also knew it was my duty to go and find Donny and bring him back to the Captain’s onshore office. I said, “Aye, aye, Sir,” did an about face and grabbed my hat as I ran by my writing desk.

I had a feeling that I knew right where Donny was. He had taken me to this place on a couple of occasions last summer when we had returned to port for provisions, powder and ball. There was no doubt in my mind that Donny would be at his sister’s townhouse not a cable from the wharfhouse where the Adventure was docked and where the Captain now sat pondering the fate that would bring one of his best young seaman to be accused, and most likely guilty, of rape.

Racing out of the front door of the wharfhouse, I considered my options. Captain Griffin, and his rather unusual guests, wouldn’t expect me to return for an hour or more as I searched for Donny and did whatever was necessary to bring him back. I had at least time enough for one side trip. I was deathly afraid of what might happen to Donny and there was only one man I knew that could help me, and him, in this situation. I had met this individual about a year earlier. At the time, I had the intention of becoming a man of the cloth, a destiny which I eventually avoided. I was sitting on a bench outside of a small book shop on Ratcliffe Highway, where I had just purchased a rather old and tattered Bible when I suddenly realized that there was someone standing behind the bench, obviously reading over my shoulder. I looked up and . . .

“I doubt very strenuously that you would enjoy a life spent within the Church, young man. I am sure you would much prefer a life at sea.”

This was my first meeting with John Nagle, a man who would come to have a profound effect upon my life. When I first met him, he struck me as a mediumly-placed gentleman, dressed in well-fitting, though somewhat worn, breeches and hose with a coat and waistcoat of a handsome, though plain, brown color. His head was unadorned at the time, without hat or wig, and I thought he might have been a merchant who had just stepped out of his shop for a breath of fresh air pleasant stroll.

“How did you know . . .”

“It is the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday; the sun is shining and the weather is beyond fair; and you are sitting on a bench reading the Good Book with the look on your face of a man trying to decide whether to have an aching tooth pulled. You are too young to be a parson and too old to be a school child. And” he said sitting down next to me, “it seemed like the best guess.”

“Well, Sir, you happen to be correct but I don’t know why you would disparage my goal when you do not even know me.”

“My thought was born from your ‘aching tooth’ look. I have nothing against preachers of the Word but I believe if yours was a true calling you might have a more serene look about you.”

At this I had to chuckle and my small laugh brought a smile to his lips. He was the sort of man that looked better smiling and who you wanted to make smile. He reminded me, then, of a headmaster of a school I attended when I was young. When he was smiling, the world could be at ease.

“Well then,” I said, closing the Bible in my lap, “Why do you believe that I would be better off devoting my life to the sea?”

“Ah! In the first place, your shoes. I can see from the pattern of wear that these are the shoes that you, most likely, wear every day. They show the signs of walking on cobblestones and hard surfaces, scuff marks and the fact that your heels are almost as level as my reasoning. From that, I conclude that you are a city dweller, rather than the offspring of a tiller of the soil.

“Secondly, you can read. That suggests that you grew up in a more urban setting than a child of the fields who would, of necessity, be required to work alongside his family instead of having the opportunity of education. The fact that you had some form of education provides for a more fertile medium for an imagination. Also, growing up in a city exposes you to a more world-traveled populace and might make you wonder more about the qualities of places other than your native shores.

“And, finally,” and here his own face took on an almost haunted look, “I find that there is no life better than a life at sea.”

He paused, looking off into the distance, his voice trailing off into the clutter of sound that is found along the Ratcliffe Highway. Even with the noise of the horses and wagons and the myriad cries of the vendors, his sigh was audible.

“Well, my young friend,” he said after a pause, “shall we venture up to the Town of Ramsgate and I shall be more than happy to let you stand me a pint or two in repayment for this fair share of advice! I hope ye saved a few coppers from the purchase of your Bible!”

This was my introduction to Mr. Nagle. Over the intervening months, I had come to know him as a genius in most anything I ever asked. We spent many a night discussing everything from the Ark of the Covenant and its storied place in history to the signs of the zodiac and how the study of the generalizations that form the basis for this mystical circle truly can provide insight into a person’s character.

Mr. Nagle was, without a doubt, the most intelligent, learned and wise individual I have ever known. He was also a drunk and a vagrant. In the year that I had known him I had never seen him perform an honest day’s work. I had never seen his home and I never knew whether he lived in doors or out. His clothes were always thread bare but clean; his personal hygiene was on a par with a laborer – he shaved every few days and seemed to find the wherewithal to bath from time to time but by midnight of most nights, and I was witness to this on many an occasion, he would be almost catatonic with drink but he would somehow contrive to slink off into the night before I could follow him.

On several occasions, I had invited him to my own lodgings and he often accepted. But he never overstayed his welcome and, after a long day of my own employment, I would arrive home to an immaculately cleaned apartment and a cunningly wrought dinner made from whatever Mr. Nagle could find around my home. We once had a wonderful soup he made from nothing but an onion, some scraps of bread, and a lump of cheese.

On this terrible day, when I knew that my duty was to find Donny Driver and bring him back to face the Captain’s wrath, I also knew where I would most likely find Mr. Nagle and that at this time of day he would be still in shape to help me. If there was any person in the world that could assist Donny, and I knew that I was totally helpless in this situation, it was John Nagle, presently sitting with a pint of stout at Devil’s Tavern.

TO BE CONTINUED!

Edited May 22, 2009 by Blackbead