Step, tap. Step, tap.
Augustus is walking by the harbour, and it is so ridiculously easy that it feels as if he has his leg back. He suddenly realizes that he is grinning like a fool. Not only because of the leg, but also because of those letters – they really did come from Lampie. He has no idea how that can be possible. But she thought about him, thought enough about him to let him know what she was planning to do. Even though it is a terribly stupid plan, mind you.
All around him the water is heaving and splashing, and the ships are banging against the quayside like restless animals. In the far corner of the harbour, there is a half-collapsed jetty, which no decent fishing boat would go anywhere near. Sinking boats bob and dangle alongside it and there is an old, scorched ship, which no one ever dares to go near, because it is haunted.
If she really is somewhere in the town, then here is where she must be. Augustus peers along the jetty… Yes, there she is, creaking on her ropes, with freshly patched holes in her side.
He walks up to the boat and slaps his hand against her.
“Buck!” he screams at the wood. “Buck, I need your boat. Can you hear me?” He pounds the side with his fist. “Buck, it’s me. I need your boat. Right now!” There is no answer, so Augustus looks upwards. The sails are lowered but the ragged black flag is snapping tightly in the wind. So he is there. “Buck!”
From deep inside the hold comes a voice: “I can’t believe you have the nerve to show your face here again.”
“Buck…”
“Get lost, man, or I’ll come up there. You still have one leg left, don’t you? You don’t want to lose that too, do you?”
“Buck, that’s all in the past,” shouts Augustus. “This is now. I need your boat.”
“Oh, is that right? And I needed my woman. But I didn’t get what I wanted either.” The captain’s voice is suddenly very close; it seems to be coming from right on the other side of the planks. He is unleashing curse words that even Augustus has never heard before.
“It’s not for me,” he says as calmly as he can. “It’s—”
“Clear off, man! Go back to bed with your woman, with my woman – she was mine first! Crawl back under the covers and suffocate for all I care.”
“Don’t you think I’d rather do that if I could? But I can’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
Augustus does not reply. He means that he would give up his other leg in an instant, and his arm too, if she were waiting back at home. But you can’t make bargains like that.
“Aha,” Buck says, laughing. “Did she leave you too? Ha, serves you right. Of course she’d never want to stay with a sour-faced soak like you. I always wondered what she saw in you.”
Augustus had never understood it either. Buck was far more handsome, had much more hair and he was the captain too.
It was all so dreadfully unfair. But what could you do about it?
Nothing – as he knew very well.
So he tried nothing, did nothing and said nothing. He just looked at her, all day long. At how she walked across the deck and worked alongside the men, because she could work just as well as the rest of them, with her skirts hitched up and her black hair tied up with string.
At night he could not sleep because of her. He stayed up on deck, looking at the moon and thinking about her. Every night a little more. Maybe she could feel it too, because one night she climbed out of Buck’s bed and came to stand beside him on deck. They spoke for a while, with her doing most of the talking, while he listened and said a sentence now and then. He was happy in the darkness, as he could feel himself blushing like a lobster.
The next few nights she came again, told him all kinds of stories, sang songs and then did not want to go back to bed inside that warm cabin. The night was gentle, and the wind was mild.
Someone found out about them, of course. A ship is small, and nothing stays secret for long. Within a few days, everyone knew, including the captain. He was furious.
“You will leave my ship at the next harbour!” he roared at his first mate. “And count yourself lucky I haven’t thrown you into the sea. Backstabber! Woman thief! I thought we were friends.”
Augustus did not know what to say. So he went, with his clothes in a bundle, heading down the gangplank.
“Wait,” she called. “I’m coming with you.”
No one understood why. He was not even handsome, the first mate, and he hardly ever said anything, so what on earth did she see in him? But that’s women for you.
Buck did not want to let her go.
“Then we’ll fight for her!” he cried. “And whoever wins will keep her.”
Among pirates, that was considered fair. The winner takes the spoils. He waved his two cutlasses in the air and threw one to Augustus, who had no weapons. Augustus shrugged. Fine, then. Let’s fight.
They duelled across the deck, back and forth. “Ooh,” the men cried when Augustus almost tumbled into the sea, and, “Aah,” when Buck was driven up against the mast three times, because the first mate was quite a fighter, and passion gives you extra strength. But not enough, because there went his leg. It was half hacked off. A nasty looking wound, even to the pirates, with their iron stomachs.
The captain panted. “That’s decided, then. You still belong to me.” He went to kiss her neck, but stopped when he saw how cold her eyes were.
“No. I belong to myself,” she said and, with her man leaning against her, she walked down the gangplank, along the pier and away. Augustus stumbled along at her side. He was probably going to lose that leg.
The storm is coming closer; lightning is already flashing above the sea. The heavy clouds want to drop their burden at long last. It starts to rain – big, fat drops.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” says Augustus. “I mean she’s dead.”
“What? What did you say?”
“I mean that she is dead!” yells Augustus above the wind.
“What?!” Above his head, a dozen faces appear over the side of the ship, hairy ones and bald ones, with wet beards and an eye or a nose missing here and there. They all look shocked. Buck leans forward.
“What are you babbling about? When did it happen?”
A hundred years ago, Augustus wants to say, because that is how it feels. “About two years ago.”
“But how?”
“She just died. She was sick and then she was dead.”
“She just died?” yells the captain. “Rubbish! No one just dies!” But the pirates around him nod their heads sadly. Oh yes, just dying, that can certainly happen, it’s true.
“No! No, no, no!” Buck’s face is turning red with fury. “I won’t accept it. It can’t be true. Here I was, eaten up with jealousy because you were having such a fine time. You had her and an easy job on land and a child too. There was a child, right?”
“That’s the thing,” shouts Augustus. “The child, that’s why I’m here. For Lampie.”
“Oh yes, Lampie. That was her name!” say some of the pirates, nodding their heads.
“The little one who always sat by the fire. She was such a sweetheart.”
Buck looks around in surprise. “Fire? Where? I never heard anything about any fires.”
“Ah… Well, captain. Sometimes we used to go… We wanted to go and see her, our Em.”
“No one told me anything about it. Why not?”
“It wasn’t very often. Sometimes, when you, um, went to bed early and…”
“We will have a proper discussion about this later,” says Captain Buck.
“She’s coming across the bay!” Augustus calls up from the jetty. “On her own! In a rowing boat! In this storm!”
“What? Has she gone mad? Why?”
“She was trying to rescue someone who doesn’t deserve rescuing. To be honest, I have no idea if she’s even out there right now. But I’m worried that…”
“If she’s anything like her mother,” says Buck, “then I would be very worried indeed. Climb on board, you idiot! We’re sailing.”
“In this weather?” cry the pirates.
“Yes, of course. I wouldn’t dream of risking it with the useless lump of a helmsman we have now,” says Captain Buck. “But if I could get someone else to… Or can’t you sail with that leg of yours?”
“I don’t steer with my leg, do I?” says Augustus.
The rain is pouring down now, but as the black sail is hoisted, the boat rears up and pulls her ropes tight. She is raring to go.
“Wait!” a voice shouts. “Wait for me! I want to come!”
A big fat pirate in a dress comes lurching along the jetty, as fast as his high heels will carry him.
“Jules!” the pirates cry. “Jules has come back too!”
Now it’ll be just like it used to be. What a day!
The wind blows the ship out of the harbour.