Absolute Honour Read Free

making their yells indistinct.
Some gesticulated for the
Sweet Eliza’s
jolly boat to return, others ran further down the dock, seeking a vessel for pursuit.
    Despite his obvious strength, the man was labouring, flailing. Then a combination of stroke and tide brought him close.
    ‘Here, sir, here,’ yelled Jack. ‘Take hold.’
    While the sailors shouted warnings and leaned away to counterbalance him, Jack reached out. The man’s fingers brushed Jack’s,
a wave forced them apart, then together again. Jack grabbed, held a finger, a thumb. Bringing over his other arm, he grasped
the hand of the swimmer. Another wave sucked at him again but the man reached his other hand and this time Jack had him. With
an immense heave, he pulled him into the boat like a gaffed tuna.
    It nearly spilled them. But, with the man lying in the scuppers, Jack sitting and the sailors back at their oars, the boat
gradually steadied.
    Jack looked at the newcomer. He was blue where he wasn’t red with hair, which was in most places but especially thick at chest
and groin, like the pelt of some huge scarlet sea otter. The only lightness came from scars, of which he had an inordinate
supply, criss-crossing his body like worm casts. Instantly Jack had his cloak off, and thrown over the man, who clutched at
it but remained unable to speak.
    ‘Which way, sir?’ said one sailor to Jack. ‘Ship or shore?’
    Having been a fugitive himself – on several occasions – Jack paused now to consider the plight of the quarry. The blue-tinged
nakedness gave a sort of infant innocence to the fellow; and there was only one person in slaver’s Newport he cared a fig
about. ‘Are you a cut-purse, sir? Should we be returning you to the authorities and a deserved noose?’
    The head shook. Chattering lips tried to form words. ‘Ne … Ne …’
    ‘I fink ’e’s the last passenger we was waitin’ for,’ the other sailor, a Cockney, said.
    The man nodded and words came, the Irish accent unmistakeable. ‘That I a- a- am! And if y- y- you take me back, oagh, boys
… well,’ he threw back the cloak, and gestured to his shrunken privates, ‘the lady-in-question’s hu- hu- husband will finish
the job that the sea has st- started and render me truly the last King of Ireland!’
    The sailors laughed and Jack joined them. ‘Row,’ he said, then reached down, grasped the hand before him. ‘Jack Absolute,
sir, at your service.’
    ‘A service I will repay for plucking me from the waves like Anchises from the flames of Troy. For, faith, I forget neither
slight nor favour. And that’s as sure as my name is Red Hugh McClune.’
    It was only when Jack drew back his hand that he realized that something had lately occupied it. When he rememberedwhat, he looked again swiftly to the sea. But water had drowned the Widow’s parting words.
    Never mind, thought Jack, patting his chest. I have her here. And she will always have a little piece of me in her.

– TWO –
Stink, Drink and
Captain Link
    ‘What the Honourable fails to realize,’ Captain Link declared, ‘is that when I impregnate one of these black heathen sluts,
I serve God, my employers and the slut herself.’
    ‘How so, Captain?’ The purser, Durkin, ever the crony, fed him the question.
    ‘Because the slut receives a Christian’s blessing, her offspring the inheritance of England’s blood – and my employers get
half as much again for a proven brood mare!’ He guffawed as he raised his mug of rum. ‘To profit, gentlemen. Profit and fornication!’
    ‘Fornication!’ came the echo from the purser and the surgeon, the cry briefly rousing the slumbering First Lieutenant Engledue,
who lifted his mug, sipped then slid his head back onto his hand.
    Jack sighed and did not drink. He abhorred the toast, but he’d also had quite enough. This Guinea rum, Newport’s finest export
and the ship’s main cargo for the run to Bristol – where it would be sold to traders who would