Buccaneer by Tim Severin Page B

work at the singlestick?’ he asked.
    ‘Never. Is it some sort of cudgel?’
    Jezreel made a grimace of distaste. ‘That’s what some people call it, but gives the wrong idea. Imagine a short sword, but with a blade of ash, and a basket handle. Two men stand face to face, no more than a yard apart, easy striking distance. They hold their weapons high and make lightning cuts and slashes at one another. Each blocks the other’s blow and strikes back in an instant. The target is any part of the body above the waist. The feet must stay on the ground, not moving.’
    Jezreel’s right hand was above his head now and, with bent wrist, he was whipping an imaginary blade through the air, down and sideways, slashing and parrying. For a moment Hector feared that the big man would lose his balance on the branch and tumble into the flood.
    ‘How is the winner decided?’ he asked.
    ‘Whoever first suffers a broken head is the loser. To win you must draw blood with a blow to the head, hence my scars.’
    ‘But that doesn’t explain why you are here now.’
    The prize fighter waited a long time before he continued. ‘Like I told you, singlestick was my favourite, but I was handy with the short sword too. It’s the same style and technique but with a sharp metal blade, and when you fight for big money, the crowd wants to see the blood flow freely.’
    Hector sensed that the big man was finding it difficult to speak of his past.
    ‘I was matched against a good man, a champion. The purse was very big and I knew that I was outclassed. He need not have cheated. He cut me across the back of my leg, tried to hamstring me, and in my anger and pain I lashed out with a lucky stroke. It split his skull.’
    ‘But it was an accident.’
    ‘He had a patron, a powerful man who lost both his wager and his investment. I was warned that I would be tried for murder, so I fled.’ Jezreel gave a bitter smile. ‘One thing, though, all that exercise with singlestick or backsword will have its uses.’
    ‘I don’t grasp your meaning,’ said Hector.
    ‘This cursed flood has put an end to my hopes of making a living out of logwood. I expect my comrades will go back to what they did before – buccaneering. I think I’ll join them.’
    When eventually Jezreel judged it was safe to descend from their perch, Hector accompanied the prize fighter as they waded waist deep through the retreating flood water. They found their camp was wrecked. The huts still stood, though skewed and made lopsided by the current, but all their contents were either washed away or ruined. There was nothing to salvage. They made their way to the landing place among the mangroves and were relieved that the pirogue was undamaged though they had to extract it from the upper branches of a mangrove thicket where it had lodged. Just when they had succeeded in relaunching the pirogue, the two other Bay Men straggled in. They too had shifted for themselves and managed to climb out of harm’s way.
    ‘What do we do now?’ asked the man with the scarred face whom Jezreel called Otway.
    ‘Best try to link up with Captain Gutteridge . . . if his ship still floats,’ answered Jezreel. The little group stacked their last remaining possessions into the pirogue, then paddled out from among the mangroves, and along the coast in the direction they had last seen the sloop. They had not gone more than five miles when they saw in the distance a sight which confirmed Jezreel’s fears. Cast up a hundred yards into the coastal swamp was the dark outline of a ship. It was Gutteridge’s sloop. She lay on her side. A shattered stump showed where the mainmast had once stood. The spar itself lay across the deck in a tangled web of rigging. The mainsail was draped over the bow like a winding sheet.
    ‘Poor sods,’ breathed Otway. ‘She must have driven ashore in the gale. I doubt there were any survivors.’
    They paddled their pirogue closer, looking for any signs of life. Jezreel fired his