a little taster of Calico Jane

This is what I have so far on a pirate story - which I want to continue at some point even if not immediately [and yes, I do have Bess 5 Bess and the Gunpowder Plot open as well]

Chapter 1

“Deck there!  Sail fine on the starboard bow!” the call came from aloft.  Jane did not bother to call up to ask what sail; her lookout knew his business.  He would tell her when he was sure.

Sure enough, presently the call came.

“It’s a Don, Cap’n!  Down at the bow and wallowing like a cow in a slough!”

“All hands to trim sails; put us on an intercept course if you will, Mr. McGiver,” said Jane. “Beat to quarters, if you please.”

Her helmsman bellowed the orders for her and brought the ship round two points. Tom, the ship’s boy, beat a ruffle on his drum, sending the men at a run to the cannons, their bare feet slapping on the deck in time almost to the drumbeat.

“A few fine patches for your coat, captain, I hope,” said McGiver, jocularly.  The elderly helmsman was permitted to tease her, and Jane smiled an austere smile.  Her coat made of many patches was her talisman, her lucky charm, and it had given her the name by which she was known and feared by Spaniards and King James of England’s men alike; Calico Jane.

She thought back to that time which seemed to be in another lifetime, but was only a few short years before.

Jane clutched at the threadbare grey shawl about her shoulders. It scarcely kept out the cruel sea breeze as she shuffled along the deck with the other prisoners.

One of the sailors looked at her strange garb with a raised eyebrow.

“You don’t look like a hardened criminal; you ain’t even full grown,” he said. “What did you do?”

Jane shuddered, the bewildered and stunned look still in her eyes.

“I gave a pie to a beggar,” she said. “I never knew he was one of Monmouth’s men and if I had, I didn’t know then what that meant.  They came for me in the middle of the night,” she gestured to her night rail, her only garment besides the threadbare shawl.  “My mistress wouldn’t send me no clo’es, she said she’d paid for them and it was my problem.”

“Pore liddle wench,” said the sailor.  “I’ll see if I can’t get you a job as servant to the orficers; there’s a bit o’ pay in that, and some scraps off of their table sometimes.  And I’ve an old jacket; it’s patched, but it’s better ‘n nuffink.”

Wrapped in the patched, faded jacket, Jane was warm for the first time since she was dragged from her narrow bed by the king’s men.

She fingered the jacket, smiling to herself.  She had added to the patches with gaudy ones cut from the clothing of captives, as trophies. Once, it had been a lifeline.  It was still a reminder that people in a hard world could be kind.  One sailor’s compassion had meant that Calico Jane was prepared to show clemency to others; to stand aside from hatred and bitterness.

She saved that for King James’ men, and now for the Spaniards, who were known for their cruelty.  

The Spaniards usually had plenty of plunder as well as being the natural enemy of all Protestant countries, and it was worth while going after even small ships.  Jane enjoyed the sea breeze on her face as they danced over the waves in the ship she had made her own, named the Bodkin, which like a needle darted in, pierced the enemy and darted out again. A needle drawing thread was carved as the figurehead, pointing aggressively out to sea, under the bowsprit. Bodkin carried three masts and forty-eight guns, and one hundred and sixty men, enough to handle the guns and the sails both at once. 

“Pass the word to put a shot across the Don’s bows as soon as we are within range,” said Jane. The Spaniard was now visible from the deck.  She did not have to shout; she had men to do that for her.  It was a compromise, a nod to her sex.  The men obeyed her word passed to them because she brought them prizes; and because she made sure they were well fed and healthy, cared for by a doctor who had been transported at the same sort of time as Jane had been, for treating a wounded man. Another of Monmouth’s men, and to fail to treat him would have been a betrayal of the Hippocratic oath.  For which Dr. Summers had been sent to Jamaica as Jane had been, to toil under sun too hot for the tender skins of the English, and ruin his surgeon’s hands in the cane fields.  He had been rescued by the pirate captain who had taught Jane much of the business of piracy, the former owner of the Bodkin, then known as the Black Pig. Jane had not wasted her time on the journey to Jamaica, but had learned as much as she might of seamanship.  At the time it had been with some idea of either hoping to steal a small ship, or to pass herself off as a ship’s boy and sign on with some ship leaving Jamaica.  It had been a bargaining chip to offer to Captain Diggory Trevellyn, as well as the idea that she could spy in ports, acting as a servant.  He had been a good captain and Jane had learned much from him, and was known by the men to be an advisor not a mistress when he had been cut in half by a canon ball.  Jane had assumed command in the moment of shock following the captain’s death; and with a shrug, the men accepted that those who could lead, should lead.

It was the pirate way.

The foremost cannon rumbled, and the shot ripped through the air, the plume of water ahead of the Spaniard coming a split second before the sound of its splashing into the water.

The Spaniard was turning to fight, and the ragged hole at the bow showed why she was down at the head.

“Bring her round; we’ll give her a broadside from the larboard battery as we cross her T,” said Jane. A broadside down the length of a ship was devastating.  It was more effective fired from astern, as there was some bracing at the bow, which was also narrower than the broad expanse of the stern, but every ball which penetrated was likely to go the length of the ship, ripping apart anyone in its way. Jane had been horrified when she first heard of this, but she had learned that the rules of engagement were kill or be killed.  Time enough to let them take to their boats if they struck the colours; those who survived.