Episode 4: Bill and Aphra’s Voyage to Europe
It was a busy month getting ready for the voyage to Europe. Rebecca and Florence, Han’s mother, had to round up the appropriate wardrobe for life at a Parisian Nunnery. The clothes had to show the proper respect for the Jesuit priests and at the same time relay Elizabeth’s station in life back at the colonies. Bill’s role was to secure enough steamer trunks of quality to hold the forthcoming mountain of clothes and accessories that would have to go on the ship. Bill was back in his element only this time much more than a duffel bag was involved in getting ready. Bill wasn’t allowed to bargain with any merchant on the prices since that would reflect poorly on the Buerer family name, but he was authorized to add features to each trunk that would make the trunk unsinkable. It should be capable of holding a man’s weight and providing a stable upright position while providing access from the top to food and water enough to last several days. This was quite a quest since Bill had never heard of such a trunk. One merchant was chosen and barely made the deadline due to all the alterations required. The leak proof water storage tanks were the hardest to fabricate in a hurry, but later they was offered as a standard option for other customers. Bill took it upon himself to have miniature pistons made that could be easily hidden in Seafoam’s dresses. Effa would have her own set of six as well. This on top of the fact Effa could fence with the best in the colonies. She had taken lessons along side the sons of the Duke of York from a dueling expert from Madrid. Besides Bill there was to be an additional man aboard to watch Bill’s back. His name was Big Bear, grand son of an Iroquois Five Nation Indian Chief Great Bear and the Lily of the Mohawks, Kateri Tekakwitha. The name Mohawk means bear, but the Algonquin tribes of New York State, that were in constant war with them, said the name meant “maneater” from their ferocity in battle and their cannibalistic practices. Big Bear’s son later fought in the French and Indian war along side Thayendanegea aka Joseph Brant, a wolf clan chief that became a famous war chief of the Mohawk tribe. All the contractual arrangements for Big Bear’s services were negotiated by the family’s law firm. Bill overheard that the Mohawk fort of Ganegaono was to be supplied completely the entire time Big Bear was abroad and for three years upon his return or news of his death. Additionally the new leader was given two hundred flintlock rifles and five trunks of silver pieces as a show of good faith of the Buerer family to support the fort of eight hundred men, women and children for the agreed period of time. The result of this arrangement lasted several generations as the Buerer family used its political power to help the Mohawks avoid the fate of other Five Nation tribes. Bill was shocked at the price of this man. No one man was worth that kind of monies. Columbus was financed with less than half of such a sum. He voiced his objection to Hans, but was told to wait and see the man before objecting.
May 22, 1726 a French ship weighed anchor in the port of New York. The captain resented the stop over to pick up some girl in the colonies. He was told to unload furs if necessary to provide adequate space for five and their belongings. Five hundred fur pelts were unloaded in Quebec City at a cost of fifty pelts to the captain since his share of transport to Europe was ten per cent. He also told the men there would be women on board after the New York stop. A third of the crew didn’t come back because of the superstition of women sinking ships they were on. This curse of women on board made replacing the men extra difficult in New York. The first mate had to end up signing sailors he would normally have refused. A band of ten came up at the end when no one was approaching the ship. They were drunk and there was fighting on the wharf with men down and the screams of wounded men in the background. The leader, a man who called himself Blacky, swaggered up to the first mate stood node to nose and bellowed that ten men were ready to sign up, women or no women. Then he said there’ll be plenty of wenching on this trip to pass the time. The others laughed and started pushing each other around and grabbing with lewd gestures and obvious acts. The captain was still in New York City arranging the terms of this party coming aboard, he had every intention to get his share of five hundred pelts back. First mate only needed three more men, but it was good to have some extra men in case of death or disease. With this being the last port before heading across the ocean and having a crew he trusted for the last four voyages, he signed Blacky and his men.
Four days later, as the captain was getting ready to leave without his passengers and his makeup money, the carriages arrived. There were five in all with six guards along, for the week on the road to stand watch at night to allow the party to sleep well on the way. Bill and Effa went aboard first to meet with the captain and check out their quarters. Bill expected something close to the captains’s quarters, maybe even the first mate and pilot cabins cleaned out and readied. What there was readied if you can call it that was a place between the crews quarters and the cargo hold. So one side would be the ship’s crew and the other three sides high piles of half aged animal skins in full aroma. Effa left immediately to buy fabric to cover the skins and incense to burn on the voyage. Bill had authority to retain as many of the guards as he deemed fit upon seeing the ship. They were all seasoned sailors with fighting experience in the Queen Anne wars. And since he had no intention of staying awake all day and night guarding his wards, he retained all six. They would stand watch in two-man, eight-hour shifts round the clock. The only thing left was to have the captain agree for them to keep their weapons throughout the voyage. The argument was they had enough to protect themselves from the crew, but not enough for the crew to use in a mutiny. Several bags of silver pieces later, Bill and the captain shook hands.
A week after arriving all was ready for departure except Big Bear. Bill knew there was no leaving until the Mohawk was aboard. A bag of silver a day kept the captain quiet while everyone waited. Three days later, while Bill and a couple of the guards were smoking on the crowded dock watching two adjacent ships being loaded, the Mohawk appeared. The crowd hushed and men slipped away to each side of the walkway to let something coming along pass by. Bill’s first thought was that the air stopped blowing and the sun seemed a bit dimmer. All the rowdy laughter and yelling seemed to stop cold. Big Bear stood seven and a half feet tall with a scalp lock sticking straight up in spikes over a foot long. Bill froze at the sight of this man, almost too numb to approach him and identify himself as Bill Seaworthy, the man he’ll be taking orders from for the next few years. Bear, as Bill later called him since adding big was quite redundant, wore only a loin cloth and knee high moccasins. His weapons were impressive; three new flintlocks with two thirty pound powder bags and a huge shot bag to match. Around his waist was a leather belt that held four knives that made Bill’s bayonet look like some kind of kitchen utensil. Then there were other bags of water and god knows what since you could see some scalps hanging off to one side. But thing that Bill couldn’t get his eyes off was a hatchet, if you could call it that, which he carried in his right hand. The edge of the blade was a perfect half circle that glowed in the sunlight with a radius of two feet and a counter balance of thick three inch in spikes radiating from a seven or eight inch steel ball on the other end. The handle was three inches across, four feet long and bound with dried leather with a thick strap wrapped around his forearms. Bill had never seen six feet of blade in his life and was glad Bear was with him on this voyage. Bill managed to walk up and extend his left hand in greeting Bear, a traditional way to engage allowing the right hand to defend if a sudden attempt was made to attack by a stranger. Bear nodded slightly and Bill turned to go up the loading ramp. Bill noticed that a ramp that had been silent with untold number of heavily-laden carts earlier that week began to creek and groan under Bear’s weight as they came aboard. The captain pulled Bill to the side and told him that there was no mention of Indians in the party and that he would have to be paid for any missing items during the voyage.
Their quarters were reasonably comfortable. A 10X20 foot area had been cleared in the hold of the ship, and Effa’s attempts for privacy veils for the women were well done. Enough room remained for storage of the chests and barrels of dried meats and large nets of fruit and nuts. A cast iron plate, provided a base for a small fire with a spit to heat meals and provide warmth in the damp hold. The guards were assigned to the tops of the piles of skins surrounding the area and Bear had taken to living somewhere among the mountains of skins alone, out of sight, which was agreeable to all in the party from purely fearful standpoint. There was no room for him to do anything but eat at the fire as six to seven hundred pounds of muscle took up most of the available space around the fire. Yet Bear didn’t eat that much more than anyone else during the voyage, a mystery for much of the trip.
During the day Aphra would read by the light of a large whale oil lamp hung from the rafters, while Effa fenced with one of the guards who was really quite good with a sword. Bill spent his time on board with Klondike and one or two of the guards. The party kept to themselves for safety concerns, and the crew was wary of the dog and the big Indian. One stormy night Bill couldn’t sleep and went up to the deck to speak to the captain. He didn’t notice that Klondike followed him up the ladder to the deck. The winds had come up suddenly and not all the gear had been battened down yet. As the crew hurried to tie off the heavier pulleys and yardarms, the ship swung around in a gust of wind causing a giant pulley used to hoist one of the main sails to come around, and snapping smaller cabling used to secure it normally, it slammed into Klondike. The weight was enough, not only crush Klondike’s hindquarters, but knock out a six foot section of railing leaving Klondike scrambling with his front paws to avoid falling overboard. Bill turned with the loud yelp behind him in time to see his faithful companion on the brink of the abyss, his body crushed and limp, and his eyes pleading with Bill for help. With no line to secure himself, Bill lunged towards the railing in a reflex reaction that put both of them in danger. Bill knew he couldn’t get his arms around Klondike’s neck, so he grabbed for the neck and one leg. Bill braced his feet against a slick railing and when the ship suddenly listed to port, he had to hold himself and three hundred pounds of dead weight from sliding into the black raging sea only inches from his feet. His arms were burning from the strain of all that weight and as he felt his interlocking fingers starting to give under the weight he screamed the scream of a man knowing he was going to die, filled with anger and hopelessness. There was no way he wanted to live knowing he let his beloved dog slip into the sea without him. Just then an arm encircled both of them and pulled them straight up into the air, as man would swoop up a baby. After being lowered safely inside the hatch, Bill watched as Bear squeezed through a door way with Klondike in his arms bent over at the waist to clear the low beam above. Bill followed behind all the way to Bear’s fur cave. Bear had hoisted up several planks of timber to use as a roof over his bed of skins of course. Then he covered the entire cove in skins like a beaver’s lodge. There were two openings both well hidden. Bill admired Bear’s hiding place that emitted no light from the lamp whatsoever. Bear lowered Klondike to his bed gently and began to bandage the wounds after giving him something from one of those pouches he carried. It must have been something to kill the pain because Klondike made no sounds while Bear worked on him. The wound was huge, at least six inches across of open flesh and Bear took special care with the exposed tissue. Then Bear did something Bill hadn’t even heard of. He pulled out two sharp metal tubes and a foot long piece of leathery cat gut or something similar. Then he attached the two tubes to the gut, he then jammed one tube into his arm inside a vein after pushing the other in Klondike leg high inside the thigh part of the leg after feeling around a while. Bill could see Bear’s blood flowing down the tubing. After a few minutes Bill extended his arm, indicating he was next to give blood to his best friend. Bear smiled for the first time since meeting him on the dock, and the dead eyes that could freeze a man where he stood softened to a look of friendship. Bill had never felt close to another man in his whole life, but sitting there with the three of them together was the closest to belonging somewhere he had ever felt.
There must have been something besides painkillers in that pouch because Klondike was up and running around in a couple of days. After that Klondike and Bear were together constantly. Since the guards were around the clock and Effa was with Aphra every moment, Bill didn’t mind Klondike being away from the encampment for hours on end. Apparently Bear would hide and Klondike would try to find him among the mountains of skins. There was something else Bill noticed while giving blood to Klondike. Bears had at least eight places in his back with arrow shafts protruding slightly. They had been filed down to the surface of the skin, but definitely had been left in him rather than pulled on through the other side, no doubt because the arrowheads weren’t close enough to the surface to dig out.
As the voyage went on and supplies started to dwindle, both for the ship’s crew and Bill’s party, tempers started to flare. Even though the fruit and most of the vegetables were gone, the crew still thought it wasn’t fair the passengers got to eat so well, especially the men picked up in New York docks. Bill and the captain agreed the members of his party should stay off the deck and be careful below. Only a few of the crew saw Bear come aboard and fewer still saw him save Bill and Klondike with one arm. And given how sailors lie outright about things they saw, it wasn’t a surprise that Blacky and his men didn’t believe the stories about the Mohawk on board. In fact Blacky had his own story. His real name was Thomas Harley, husband of Mary Harley or Mary Harlee, a pirate out of the Virginias looking for easy prey north. Later that year they would be tried for piracy on the high seas in the Virginia colony. But right now she was tailing the French ship waiting for the signal of a mast on fire to close in. Blacky was to gain control of the weapons and then signal by setting one of the masts on fire. But Blacky was having a hard time with this crew, the original crew was loyal to the captain and now they were well out into the Atlantic and he was going to have to make his move without control of the ship’s armory. He figured the ships were evenly matched roughly a hundred on each crew. There would also be the added reward of the ransom for whoever this girl was that warranted bodyguards.
Every couple of days or so there would be another crew member missing and the captain began to suspect the Mohawk. Bill calmed the captain with still another bag of silver with each disappearance but by the third week the captain said they would not be able to get all the way across the ocean if this kept up at this rate. Bill was to ask the Mohawk to only approach the sailors without a red scarf around their neck. Then he instructed his original crew to wear red around their necks at all times. The captain did not intend to confront the Mohawk as he was already down men and confronting Bear could lose him half the crew, maybe more. It fell on Bill to tell Bear about the agreement with the captain. As he went further back in the skins to where Bear had made his lodge he saw something white in the distance. It was a pile of bones and hair neatly stacked like a small log cabin, about two feet high. The Iroquois were known as cabin builders and Bear was no exception. He quickly went back to where the lodge was and announced his approach. Bear was sitting in the dark. A small fire on a flat stone slab was the only light. Bill brought a red scarf and tied it around his neck. He told Bear no one with red scarves was to be harmed. He wasn’t sure Bear even knew English, it’s not like Bear had said anything to this point. Then a deep rumble of a voice said “red lives”. That was good enough for Bill not wanting to put to sharp a point on it. He told everyone, even Apfra and Effa to keep red around their throats at all times.
The captain had seen the pirate ship behind them two weeks prior, and had tripled the guard on the armory. He had instructed his three officers to be ready on a ongoing basis. Finally Blacky could wait no longer. He sent two men aloft to fire up the main mast just as dawn broke the first day of the fourth week at sea. It didn’t take long for the mast to send the beacon to the following ship. Then Blacky’s men cut the lines to all three main sails, leaving the ship to lose speed. Blacky with two others slipped over the side, leaving the rest to deal with an angry crew. The crew quickly disposed of the nine conspirators without losing a man. Then the captain addressed the men and said to prepare to be boarded by pirates. Since the vessel was a merchant ship it only had two small cannons, one fore, one aft. The pirate ship drew along side and began to shell the merchant ship from one hundreds yards, just beyond the range of the two small cannon. It continued to circle and fire round after round into the French vessel. Towards afternoon the ship closed in to board her. There fires in every section of the vessel and sailors were busy throwing buckets of sea water on the fires. Bill went below to see to the last minute preparations for defending the women. The doorway leading into the hold had been fortified with timbers secured from through the ship and all were armed with pistols and flintlocks aimed at the doorway. There was enough firepower to clog the doorway with bodies if it came to that. Bill was satisfied with the readiness of the party below and returned to the passageway leading to the deck. He ran into the first mate and asked if he could have one of the small cannons down below to slow up the charge that was coming. The first mate assigned six men to get the cannon down to Bill and load it with grapeshot and stay with the cannon for the duration of the battle. Several rounds of grapeshot and the powder to go with them were quickly brought to the site. Bill thanked him and went back to efforts to narrow the passageway by half. About the time preparations were complete Bill could hear the bloodcurdling screams of battle cries as men boarded the ship swinging over on lines and across planks that banged as they hit the deck. Bill for the first time realized he hadn’t seen Klondike or Bear since coming below. He assumed they were a little further back in the skins and would come forward as the action heated up, a reserve unit of Herculean proportion that could mean the difference between life and death if the pirates got past Bill and the cannon.
Bear and Klondike were not in among the skins. They were on deck behind a wall waiting for more pirates to board so the deck would be full of men, too crowded for anything but sword fighting and hand to hand combat. Bear had given Klondike and himself each a small fist full of an herb from New Zealand that allowed natives to lose an arm in fighting and not slow up a bit in fact the remaining arm would be ten times more powerful that before the fighting started. Bear had traded many pelts for this herb and had a bag full in the many bags he possessed. He had used it several times already and had never lost a battle. Klondike was alarmed at the sense of power it gave him. At first he growled at Bear then he turned to the approaching wave of men and bolted out in plain sight. The first man he reached looked up in time to see a beast airborne with teeth three inches long then nothing, his eyes staring from a bodiless head rolling around on the deck. The next man was no better off, just a couple of seconds longer to know what was coming.
Every man on the deck stopped when they heard a Mohawk battle cry from lungs bigger than a horse has. But the men nearest Bear turned to run from what appeared to be a wall of flesh in full war paint. The hatchet made its first pass and three men fell to the deck in halves. Their heads and torsos were still trying to run, arms pumping but not going anywhere. Even the French crew cleared way back so as not to get anywhere near the fifteen foot arcs that Bear was making in the smoky air.
Mary had Blacky fished out of the water. He told her that the French ship still had all its weapons. With night falling, he and Mary and twelve of the best seamen they had silently went over the side and on to an eighteen foot whaling boat with six sets of oars that was made for speed. The remainder of the pirates went on to attacking the French merchant ship. By this point the two ships were lashed together so it was easy for Bear and Klondike to chase what was left of the pirates back onto their ship. The men brave enough to stand and fight were either torn apart by a savage beast or sliced in half by Bear’s hatchet. A few shots did hit Bear and Klondike but the herb made it look like they missed since neither looked down when the shot landed. It was over in minutes. Eighty pirates were dead on the two decks another six were picked off at long range by a Mohawk that was a better shot than most military sharpshooters. The Mohawks had been the first tribe to adopt the flintlock as a weapon and became known as “the keepers of the flint.” There were no wounded among the attackers. The French crew had twelve dead, fifteen wounded and two unaccounted for. Bill had reached the deck about halfway through the battle in time to see his dog being shot time after time before reaching the shooter and removing the head. The Mohawk was flying through the air swinging the hatchet into crowds of men who had bunched together for protection only to find out it didn’t help any. Bill saw many shots land in Bear’s chest and come out his back, leaving a new hole each time. Bill tried to join in battle but each time he got close enough to fight either Bear or Klondike would swoop in and slaughter than man before Bill could thrust his sword. Bill saw first hand why Bear had cost so much to retain his services and couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for other tribes without gun powder to even up the battle. While most the crew went about finishing fighting the fires on board, the rest carried Klondike and Bear below for help treating their wounds.
Klondike had very little blood flowing from his wounds. In fact, once Effa and Aphra cleaned him up he wasn’t bleeding at all. Klondike did have numerous holes in his chest and sides from the fighting. Bear was another story. He was bleeding badly from six gun shot wounds and one stabbing. The bandages were applied as tight as they could wrap them. Bill ran to the lodge under the skins to retrieve the steel tubes and cat gut to attempt to save Bear’s life like he had Klondike’s. Bill hurriedly forced the tube into his arm and pushed the other end into Bear’s. The captain, after seeing what Bill was doing ordered his men to line up to give blood through the night if need be to save the man who was responsible for them all being alive. When morning came, Bear had stopped bleeding. Bill at the time was too tired to think about why Bear was alive and went off to fall asleep in the skins.
When Bill woke the following morning, more like noon, there was the sound of hammers and saws busy at work. As he came up the passageway with the cannon still in place, he overheard laughing about how many men it took to carry the Mohawk below. The twenty or so under him, bent at the waist and the ten or so trying to guide the mass of groaning flesh towards the hatch leading to the hold. Bill had to laugh too, it had been quite a sight, all these men struggling to carry this mountain along. Once on deck he saw Bear helping to wrestle the main mast from the pirate ship into position on the French ship. The main sail had already been replaced and men were bringing supplies from the other ship. The biggest cannons were also brought onboard with the cannon balls stacked neatly on center deck. The mood of the men was one of excitement since the food was fresh and supplies were now better stocked than when they left New York. After a couple of rounds of the big cannon to acquaint the crew, the pirate ship slid into the dark waters.
We were under way once again with spirits high. The crew stays well clear of Bear on the deck while he sharpens the hatchet, dulled from so many bodies and armor. Klondike was playing with some of the crew, barking and chasing a big rag they tied in knots. Aphra was back to her reading. Effa was complaining she didn’t get a chance to kill some pirates and it seemed unlikely there would be another chance for quite some time. Bear began eating more at mealtime along with no further disappearances of crewmembers. Everyone quit wearing red around their necks. Everyone was looking ahead to reaching the homeport of Marseille, France.
TO BE CONTINUED!