Chapter 197: Bully in the Alley
The reefs had crowded in on both sides, pale coral plain as a church window beneath water clear enough for a man to count the bottom. The Grand Dame went through the passage just as she had the first time, carrying on as though nobody had ever thought to mention to her hull that she was considerably wider than the passage.
"By the mark, four!" came the cry from the bow.
The lead came up dripping, then went straight back into the water.
James held the wheel, loose and easy, like he was guiding a fishing skiff instead of a galleon broad enough to swallow the Rose and still leave room for the quartermaster to complain about it.
He had done this impossible business once already. The second attempt bothered him considerably less than it bothered the men packed into the ratlines, who watched the water with static expressions, waiting to be proved fools.
Behind him, the deck was thick with men. Rose sailors and Fortune sailors stood packed shoulder to shoulder, in a mixture this ship had never carried before. Sawyer was already down on one knee beside the mainmast, rubbing a thumb along a seam as though the reef might have knocked something loose.
Somewhere in that crowd, a knot of voices found the beginning of a tune together.
James caught it from the wheel before the crew had even managed to agree on the right key, and sent his own voice rolling over the canvas and the reef.
"Help me, Bob, I’m bully in the alley,"
"Way, hey, bully in the alley!"
"Help me, Bob, I’m bully in the alley,"
"Bully down in shinbone al!""
The whole deck came back at him, ragged, off-key, and perfectly delighted with itself. Boots began beating time against the boards before the line was finished, and when the chorus came around again, every man aboard had found something to add, whether by singing or merely making enough noise to pass for it.
The song went directly into its first verse without so much as stopping to draw breath.
"Sally is the girl that I love dearly,"
"Way, hey, bully in the alley."
"Sally is the girl that I spliced dearly,"
"Bully down in shinbone al."
"I knew a Sally once!"
Mackerel Jim shouted from near the mainmast.
"Off Barbados. Finest woman I ever spliced, and I mean that every way a man could mean it!"
Not a soul believed him. Not a soul bothered to tell him so, either, because contradicting Mackerel Jim had always been the quickest way to make sure the story grew longer.
Near the rail, Ezra and Silas Hollis had already turned the verse into a private quarrel.
"It’s dilly and dally, ye great fool. Everybody knows that."
"That’s the next line, ye deaf article. This one’s spliced."
"Aye, and ye’ve had every line of this song wrong since the day ye were born."
Doyle worked his way along the deck with a flask, offering it to whichever man was singing loudly enough to prove he had earned a drink. He reached the middle of the crowd and found, with remarkable suddenness, that every man there had discovered some fascinating sight on the horizon instead.
"Help me, Bob, I’m bully in the alley,"
"Way, hey, bully in the alley!"
"Help me, Bob, I’m bully in the alley,"
"Bully down in shinbone al!""
Up in the rigging, Kit apparently felt that the rhythm called for a little entertainment of its own. On the beat of the chorus, he released the topgallant yard and swung out over open water with one hand and a length of loose line keeping him from a very stupid death.
The rope snapped taut with a crack loud enough to turn heads.
For one long heartbeat, Kit hung over the sea with both boots kicking at empty air.
Rook called, already fishing for his coin. "Two shillin’ says he loses his grip before he’s back aboard!"
"Ye’re on. Lad’s too stupid to fall," Twice answered.
A hand shot out from the rigging, caught Kit by the wrist, and hauled him back over the rail before either wager could be over. He landed on the deck in a heap of rope, limbs, and injured pride.
"Pay up," Twice said. "He didn’t fall."
"He nearly bloody fell."
"Nearly’s not fallin’."
Mary, or Mark Read watched from a coil of cable near the mast and shot her verdict. "Bury him if he does it again. I’ll not be sewin’ that boy’s arm back on twice in one lifetime."
The song moved into its second verse, this time taken up by Bert, Edmund, and Wesley Thorne. The three voices rose together in harmony so exact that a man might have thought they had rehearsed it in church rather than across the deck of a pirate ship.
"For seven long years I courted little Sally,"
"Way, hey, bully in the alley."
"But all she did was dilly and dally."
"Bully down in shinbone al."
Every word landed precisely where it ought to, and half the deck could not decide whether to laugh at the three of them or respect the performance. There was something plainly unnatural about a pirate crew singing of courtin’ and splicin’ with the sort of precision normally reserved for men who had been handed hymnals.
The chorus came around again, louder now because everybody had already had two turns at it.
Then, right in the middle of the noise, at a moment that had no earthly connection to anything being sung, one word rose clear above the rest.
"Certainly."
Nobody, James included, ever discovered what exactly he had just agreed to.
Elsewhere on the deck, in a corner considerably less interested in music, Grey and Crick had their heads together over a chart and a length of sounding line. Each man was losing his mind by slow, cautious, professional degrees.
Grey drove a finger against the chart. "That’s wrong. Four fathom shouldn’t hold a hull this size, not by any measure I’ve ever trusted, and yet here we sit, still afloat."
"Or maybe they never shifted at all."
Crick watched a gull wheel low over the reef with solemn attention. "Maybe it’s the blessing that’s kept the captain breathin’ all this time, only now it’s found itself a bigger hull to live in. The Rose’s luck, grown fat and gone lookin’ for a second home."
"Superstition doesn’t hold up a ship."
"And yer soundings keep tellin’ ye this ship’s already sunk twice over. Which one of us d’ye reckon is closer to the truth?"
Grey had no answer worth giving. That seemed to trouble him more than any wrong number could have done.
A small, familiar shimmer gathered somewhere behind James’s eyes, invisible to both navigators still arguing a few strides away.
🏴 [PERK ACTIVATED] — Coastal Giant
James watched Grey and Crick continue their discussion without him.
A second ship behaving like this was going to earn him quite a reputation before the season was finished. He could already see it, some cursed-handed captain, the sort of man a religious sailor crossed himself before signing on with.
The Rose already had that reputation behind her. It seemed the Grand Dame had every intention of earning one of her own.
He kept that thought to himself and let the two navigators carry on fighting over theirs.
At last the channels parted into open water ahead. The coral dropped away on both sides, and the song, having apparently decided it had no intention of being left behind, rolled straight into its final verse.
"I ever get back, I’ll marry little Sally,"
"Way, hey, bully in the alley."
"Have six kids and live in Shin-bone Alley."
"Bully down in shinbone al."
For the last chorus, the whole deck joined in. Every voice aboard found it at once, and the result was the biggest, loudest racket the song had managed all morning.
"Help me, Bob, I’m bully in the alley,"
"Way, hey, bully in the alley!"
"Help me, Bob, I’m bully in the alley,"
"Bully down in shinbone al!"
Then it broke apart into ordinary shipboard noise. Laughter and loose talk took the place of singing as the Grand Dame’s bow passed through the last of the coral and entered open water proper.
Cudjoe crossed the deck at his unhurried pace once the singing died down. He had watched the entire performance from the rail without contributing so much as a syllable to it, which was probably why he still had his voice.
He came up beside the wheel. "Well, that’s the entertainment finished. Now let’s talk about somethin’ that actually matters, Captain."
"Aye, go on, then." James kept one eye on the reef sliding away behind them.
"Where are we findin’ the rest of this fat lady hands, Captain?"
"Nassau’s out."
James said it without ceremony. "Place has gone to the dogs since Hornigold lost his chair, and I’ve no interest fillin’ a crew with men who’ll cut each other’s throats before we even sail out the harbor."
"Aye, I’ve heard the same, nobody mindin’ the yard there anymore."
"Concordia’s off the list too, though for a kinder reason. The souls washed up on our beach these days are farmers lookin’ for an easy life, not a rough berth aboard some lass this size."
"And Havana’s nae even worth sayin’ aloud," Cudjoe added before James could.
"That leaves Port Royal or Tortuga."
"Port Royal."
Cudjoe didn’t hesitate. "Closer by sail, and full of the sort of sailor who’ll sign a captain’s articles wi’out askin’ too many questions."
"Tortuga’s got the same crowd."
"Aye, but she’s farther, and I’m nae spendin’ extra days at sea recruitin’ the same breed of deserter and drunk I’d find closer tae home."
James laughed.
"Port Royal it is, then."
Cudjoe let a moment pass before bringing up the rest. "There’s somethin’ else. A handful of new sailors washed up at Concordia while ye were off makin’ a spectacle of yerself in Cuba, we folded most of ’em straight intae the Rose and the Fortune both."
"Aye?"
"Among ’em, a master-at-arms. And a cook, if ye can believe it."
James turned away from the wheel.
"The very two?"
"Plain enough."
James released the wheel and caught Grey by the sleeve, then hauled him bodily toward the spokes.
"Take her, Grey."
"Captain, I haven’t finished workin’ out how she’s even floatin’ in the first place."
"Then work it out while ye’re holdin’ the wheel. Ye’ll manage fine."
Grey took the wheel like it was a lit fuse and told not to make a fuss about it. He muttered about fathoms and blind luck, but James was already gone and had no intention of waiting.
He moved across his deck, still full of singing and noise, heading to find the two connections he’d bought and paid for months ago and had never once laid eyes on.