tardy pirate
Yesterday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and I was too busy telling stories about bat bites on the head to do my part.
So here, a day late, is my contribution by way of Anne Bonney. Anne was more than ninety when she and I grapled over her dialogue in Dawn on a Distant Shore, and she always won. Here she's known as Anne Bonney Stoker, or Granny Stoker. Here's one of her better scenes:
The captain of the Leopard kept Stoker with him while the marines searched the ship, took weapons and herded the sullen crew to the quarterdeck.
"Bloody Tory arsh wipers! You can kiss me blind cheeks, fookin' cowards, the lot of youse!" Granny had lost her musket and her knife to a marine three times her size, but her mouth was her own.
She perched on a water cask now, as there was no intact mast left on which to hang her sling. "Give me back me musket. Do you bloody hear me, boyo? I want me musket so I can stick it up your captain's arse! At least he'll die with a smile on his ugly phiz!"
Hawkeye heard Giselle draw in a breath, in disgust or distraction he couldn't tell. It was true that the captain of the Leopard was a younger man, but Hawkeye wasn't so quick as Granny to discount a man with so much firepower at his back. The wind was high and there was no hope of catching anything of the conversation, at least not while Granny kept up her steady stream of curses, spattering the circle of marines with her spittle.
"Godforsook shite-brained maw-dickers!"
Giselle grabbed the old lady by the shoulder. "Annie," she said sternly. "Enough. We cannot hear when you carry on so."
Granny Stoker peered at Giselle anxiously, one hand clawing at her arm. "Ah, there you be, sweetings."
Robbie stiffened in surprise, but the crew covered their mouths with tarry hands, trying to hold back their uneasy smiles.
"Christ," Connor muttered, wiping his sweaty brow with his cap. "She's off again."
The old lady grinned sweetly as if she had not heard this. "You'll fetch me musket, won't you Mary me love?"
"Later," said Giselle evenly. "When the time is right."
The old lady slumped down in Robbie's arms. She hung there, staring glumly at the marines and at the crew gathered around, all of them nervous enough to jump ship and swim for France, if that would keep them off the Leopard. At least the cutters had been signaled back to the fleet, which seemed to take no more interest in them, now that the gunplay was over. The Royal Navy was bound for France; and so might this crew be, by nightfall.
"Cowards," Granny muttered thickly. "Not a real man in the lot of youse."
The captain of the Leopard turned and pointed in their direction.
"Here we are then, mates," said Jemmy with a sigh. "Tories or sharks."
He was a man of no more than average height but with a keen look about him, battle scarred and burned deeply by the sun. His gaze slid over the crew, hesitated at Giselle and moved on to Hawkeye and Robbie. When he came to Granny she reared up and grinned at him.
"Hello, luvy. Come closer and give us a kiss."
"Connor," snapped Stoker. "Take her below."
She puckered up her toothless mouth. "Ooh, that's not very friendly. All these lovely big marines. Look at the doodle sack on that one, will ye? A yard like an iron pike."