Captain in Calico

Captain in Calico George MacDonald Fraser The first unpublished novel from the historical fiction legend, George Macdonald Fraser, featuring the unscrupulous and brilliantly entertaining pirate, Calico Jack Rackham.New Providence, 1720s. When infamous pirate Captain ‘Calico’ Jack Rackham returns from the high seas to ask Governor Woodes Rogers for a royal pardon, the Governor sees his chance to put his own devious plans into action.Their agreement sets off an adventure of betrayals, counter-betrayals, plots and escapes that see Rackham join forces with the scheming but seductively beautiful pirate, Anne Bonney.Captain in Calico is a wonderfully spirited and entertaining novel, which will delight fans of George MacDonald Fraser. The unscrupulous Captain Rackham is pure pleasure, and shows the author’s early penchant - and flair - for writing scoundrels of the highest order. Copyright (#u7403762a-3d4b-5794-97ae-6a681d9b1363) HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk) First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015 Copyright © The Estate of George MacDonald Fraser 2015 Foreword © The Estate of George MacDonald Fraser 2015 Map © Nicolette Caven 2015 Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016 Cover illustration © Sam Hadley George MacDonald Fraser asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books Ebook Edition © September 2015 ISBN: 9780008105587 Source ISBN: 9780008105570 Version 2016-05-19 Table of Contents Cover (#u98221180-fe6d-56c2-950e-238270b80257) Title Page (#u69f9c13b-6aca-5629-8324-010d4eb1afe8) Copyright (#ubbb7b3a6-4d39-5f1a-9a1b-e143b86c6eda) A Foreword to Captain in Calico (#u3dcb28ab-156a-5576-8b61-fef06015d91d) Map (#ub55027a0-b009-5004-807a-8b64b550da39) 1. The Man From the Sea (#uf0797ce9-3fe0-5895-b1b3-fa6b3ff236a6) 2. The Stratagem (#u156efb8c-caf0-586c-988f-584840051483) 3. Sea Trap (#u42fd7316-dac3-51fd-a852-28f0653a2fb7) 4. Major Penner (#u1e57d5d7-a9cb-5c11-a034-e24fb4568972) 5. Swords Behind The Tavern (#u9d604985-78c4-50e1-98c4-8020bdba6f77) 6. Anne Bonney (#u0616bc73-28b6-5b95-841f-5e7c0aedf9ed) 7. The Amorous Invalid (#litres_trial_promo) 8. Captain Harkness Converses (#litres_trial_promo) 9. The Plotters (#litres_trial_promo) 10. The Snare (#litres_trial_promo) 11. The Quarry (#litres_trial_promo) 12. Under the Black (#litres_trial_promo) 13. The Action (#litres_trial_promo) 14. Mosquito Bank (#litres_trial_promo) 15. On the Account (#litres_trial_promo) 16. The King’s Colours (#litres_trial_promo) 17. The King’s Justice (#litres_trial_promo) 18. Kate Sampson (#litres_trial_promo) 19. The Price of Piracy (#litres_trial_promo) 20. The Passage (#litres_trial_promo) Letters From The Archive (#litres_trial_promo) The Flashman Papers (in Chronological Order) (#litres_trial_promo) The Flashman Papers (in Order of Publication) (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Also by George MacDonald Fraser (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) A Foreword to Captain in Calico (#u7403762a-3d4b-5794-97ae-6a681d9b1363) The stories we loved best as children were the ones our father used to tell us on Saturday nights, when we would snuggle together under the bedcovers and wait for him to pick up from whatever cliffhanger he’d left us on the week before. The room would be lit only by the glow of a small electric fire, and when the story began, it was like falling into another world. Our father had a warm, dark voice, perfect for storytelling, and invariably the story would be about pirates. He had a special fondness for those outlaws of the sea; their flawed, restless characters captured his imagination more than honourable heroes ever could. It was a lifelong love, and so it was hardly surprising that his first attempt at full-length fiction, Captain in Calico, should be a pirate story. He evidently laboured at it and reworked it over a number of years, presumably in any spare time he had from working long hours as a journalist and bringing up a young family. The book is full of the influences of the writers he had loved as a boy – Sabatini, Wren, Henty, Sir Walter Scott – and the story itself is an old-fashioned yarn of the type he told us as children, but with added sex and violence. The story is based quite closely on real events in the lives of ‘Calico’ Jack Rackham and Anne Bonney, who were both notorious eighteenth-century pirates (and lovers), reflecting our father’s belief that the most compelling stories are those of real events happening to real people. Despite the failure of Captain in Calico to find a publisher, his faith in the method of using fiction to bring history to life was borne out by the later success of the Flashman novels, in which he embroidered real historical events with the exploits of his fictional anti-hero. It is interesting to see him trying his hand at a prototype anti-hero in the character of Jack Rackham, and he evidently worked hard to make him a sympathetic rogue with heroic appeal. But it was only when he came to write Flashman that he hit upon the perfect device, creating an out-and-out cad who triumphs heroically through a mixture of luck and charm, and in spite of his own cowardice and deceit. Captain in Calico was rejected by publishers, and in time he came to regard these rejections as justifiable – in the margin of an early typed account of its rejection he has written, apparently years later, the word ‘deservedly’ – but we believe he retained affection for the story, and the spark of his early and earnest faith in its merits never quite died. We say this because we believe he would have destroyed it otherwise, not left it in a fireproof safe in his old study for us to find after his death. Of course, eventually he hit upon the inspiration of bringing his beloved pirates to life in a quite different way, when he wrote The Pyrates – a book of comic genius, and one to which the movie Pirates of the Caribbean may owe more than a small debt. An early reader’s report on the manuscript and letters from The Authors’ Alliance, which are reprinted here, are direct in their criticisms of the work, seeing it as over-long and derivative. But whatever the novel’s flaws, there is no denying that the style is polished, the characters are deftly drawn, and the writing is vivid and powerful. A book such as Captain in Calico would probably be even less likely to find a publisher today than sixty years ago – not because it isn’t excellently written, but because ripping yarns are hardly fashionable now – and we do not want readers to be deceived into thinking it is vintage George MacDonald Fraser, and of the standard of the Flashman novels or the McAuslan short stories. Indeed, we thought long and hard before allowing it to be published, and are only doing so because we believe that, as an early work, Captain in Calico is a delightful curiosity, one which we hope will provide fans of GMF with a fascinating insight into the inspirations and creative impulses that turned him into such a fine novelist. That he was always a great storyteller was never in doubt. We knew that as children, long ago. Sie, Caro and Nick Fraser 1. THE MAN FROM THE SEA (#u7403762a-3d4b-5794-97ae-6a681d9b1363) Surveying the distant strand of silver beach washed by the blue Caribbean rollers, Master Tobias Dickey made a mental remark that the view was prodigious fine and life was very good to live. His contentment was born out of a good supper eaten after a hard day’s work, and also out of that sense of wellbeing which had possessed him ever since the day on which he had first set foot in this beautiful New Providence of the Bahamas. He stood at his window in Governor’s House, a small, portly man well advanced into middle age, pulling at his pipe of Gibraltar tobacco and comparing its fragrance with that of the bougainvillea with which the garden abounded. Life and the evening were quiet, and Master Dickey never dreamed that he was waiting on the threshold of a high adventure in which he was to be called to play a not unimportant part. ‘When I reflect,’ he was to write later in his journal, ‘on the Peaceful Temper with which I compos’d myself to Rest, suspecting nothing of what was to Befall, I never cease to wonder at the manner in which Providence ever reserv’s its most Sudden Strokes for the time when we are least prepar’d, even as the Tempest Breaks when the Tropick Day is most Serene.’ Certainly nothing could have been more placid and contentedly reflective than Master Dickey’s mood as he knocked out his pipe, took a last look at the scene on which the sudden Caribbean night would shortly be descending, half closed the broad screen doors and prepared for bed. It was a far cry, he thought, from a draughty garret in Edinburgh to a Governor’s residence, from clerking in an advocate’s office to his present post as first secretary, man-of-affairs, and close confidant of the Governor of the Bahamas, Captain Woodes Rogers. Yet it had only been the merest chance that had crossed his path with Woodes Rogers’ two years ago when the captain had been renting the Bahama Islands from the Lords Proprietors and obtaining a commission as Governor. Dickey had been a cog in the legal machine which had been engaged on that complex business, but Rogers, the great discoverer and privateer, had noted his diligence and had offered him his present employment. Dickey had accepted with the eagerness of one escaping from slavery, nor, he reflected as he climbed into his comfortable bed and watched the shadows lengthen across his spacious apartment, had he had cause for one moment to regret his step. Since their landing in New Providence two years ago and the expulsion of those pirates who had used it as a haven there had been much to occupy the new Governor and his assistant. Woodes Rogers saw the Bahamas as an estate of which he was to be steward for twenty-one years, and he set about to make it a model for the Western seas. To a remarkable extent he had succeeded and Master Dickey, at the Governor’s right hand in all things, had been made to feel that he too was doing his share towards making history in the Caribbean. Thus Master Dickey had ample grounds for satisfaction as he lay musing, and as the shadows deepened in the garden outside he began to doze gently. He came out of his half-sleep with a sudden start, his thoughts racing back to identify the noise that had disturbed him. Something had moved on the verandah. There had been a quick scraping, as though a foot had brushed over the boards. He listened, straining to catch the sound again, and gradually, as he lay in the warm silence, he became aware of an almost imperceptible but regular rustling just beyond the screen doors. Someone was standing there, and Tobias could hear him breathing. It was almost dark outside, and he could see nothing but the dim oblong of light between the doors. Slowly he reached out a hand towards the table at the side of his bed, in the drawer of which he kept a loaded pistol as a precaution against nocturnal marauders. His hand closed on the knob and at the same moment a board creaked on the verandah, and a vague shape loomed in the narrow space between the doors. Sweat broke out on Master Dickey’s forehead, but the hand which drew open the drawer and descended on the pistol butt was quite steady. Gently he drew the weapon out and rested it across his body, the barrel pointing towards the window. ‘Come in wi’ your hands up’, he ordered, his finger ready on the trigger in case the intruder should make a sudden move. To his astonishment the screen doors were pushed gently aside and the figure on the verandah stepped into the room. ‘If you have a pistol, take care what you’re about,’ said a deep voice. ‘God save us!’ exclaimed Master Dickey. He sat bolt upright in bed, the pistol extended in the direction of the stranger. ‘Stop you there, my lad. Not a step closer. Guards!’ He raised his voice in summons. ‘Guards!’ ‘Why wake the house?’ The stranger’s voice sounded almost amused to Master Dickey’s incredulous ears. ‘You’ve no need for guards. My business is with Governor Rogers.’ ‘Governor Rogers?’ Master Dickey pushed back the bed clothes and stepped out on to the floor, keeping the bed be- tween himself and his mysterious visitor. ‘And what the devil d’ye mean by creeping aboot my window, then? Guards!’ he shouted again. It seemed that the intruder must be a lunatic. The heavy tramp of feet and the sound of voices in the passage outside his door heralded the arrival of sentries. Knuckles rapped on the panels. ‘Private Nicholas, sir. Is aught the matter?’ ‘Come in!’ called Dickey sharply, and the door opened. ‘Light the candle on my side table, sharp, now! There’s a mad man in here and I have a pistol pointin’ at him.’ ‘Christ!’ exclaimed the startled soldier. Dickey, his eyes still straining against the dark at the dim figure beyond the bed, heard the sentry stumble against the table as he fumbled for the candle. There was a rasp of flint, and then a yellow spear of flame as the sentry lit the candle. By the candle’s faint light the dark shape on which Dickey’s pistol was trained came to life as a big man in white shirt and breeches, with a kerchief bound sailor-fashion round his head, who stood calmly surveying the little lawyer and the gaping sentry. In the doorway the light twinkled on the brass buttons of a guard sergeant, and behind him Dickey saw the startled faces of two other soldiers. The intruder’s face, aquiline and brown as a gypsy’s, wore an expression of mild amusement. ‘You’re a game little bantam,’ he remarked to Dickey. ‘Governor Rogers should sleep easy of nights.’ ‘Haud your tongue!’ snapped Tobias. ‘Sergeant, when ye’ve done gawping d’ye think ye might tak’ this thief o’ the night under arrest? Bestir yourself, man!’ Hastily the sergeant strode forward and grasped the intruder by the arm. The guards stationed themselves one at each side of the prisoner. With a sigh of relief Master Dickey laid aside his pistol. ‘A fine watch ye keep, sergeant,’ he observed acidly. ‘Hauf the hoose might have been murdered in their beds, and where were you wi’ your sentries?’ The sergeant glowered at the prisoner. ‘Come on, you,’ he began, but Master Dickey cut him short. ‘Wait, wait, wait. Sentry, get another light till we see what manner of bird we’ve caught.’ He came round the end of the bed and confronted the prisoner. ‘You, now. Who are ye and what are ye after?’ The big man smiled down at him. He was a fine-looking fellow, Dickey admitted, a grand body of a man with those mighty shoulders and that narrow waist. ‘You’ll grin on the other side of your face, my buckie,’ the lawyer added sharply. ‘What d’ye mean, keekin’ in my door at this hour o’ the nicht?’ ‘I told you,’ replied the prisoner mildly. ‘I want to see Governor Rogers. Why else would I be here?’ ‘Tae rob and murder, like enough,’ snapped Master Dickey. ‘For why did ye no’ come in the light o’ day like an honest man?’ ‘I’ll talk to Governor Rogers,’ said the other. Master Dickey stared and shook his head. ‘The man’s plainly demented,’ he observed. ‘Here, you, sergeant, tak’ him tae the guard-house. Ye’ll see the Governor, my lad, have nae fear o’ that. And ye’ll no’ be so glib then, I’m thinking.’ The sergeant tightened his grip on the prisoner’s arm, but without apparent effort the big man brushed it away. ‘I’ll see the Governor,’ he said quietly. ‘What I have to say won’t wait. I’ve no wish to spend the night in some stinking prison, either. Now, sir,’ he addressed Dickey, ‘you seem to be a man of some sense; you may be sure Governor Rogers will want to see me, even if he has to leave his bed for it. Will you summon him, or shall I shout for him?’ In spite of the man’s cool insolence, Dickey found himself impressed. There might be something in what he said. In these troubled times the Governor had dealings with some queer cattle, and the lawyer had been in New Providence long enough to learn not to judge folk by their appearance. Then too, the fellow had given no trouble; he had not the look of a petty thief, nor was he armed. Master Dickey frowned and pondered and made his decision. ‘Call the Governor, sergeant, if ye please.’ The prisoner inclined his head. ‘I’m obliged to you, sir.’ Master Dickey’s judgement in summoning the Governor proved to be sound. A less active official than Woodes Rogers might have consigned the mysterious visitor to the lock-up for the night and Master Dickey to perdition for ever, but the Governor of the Bahamas was a man who had learned in a hard school the value of prompt investigation. When roused from sleep and informed that a sea-faring man wished to see him on a matter of importance, Rogers said nothing beyond a command that the anonymous intruder should be conducted to the study. Presently he descended to the hall, wearing a light silk robe over his sleeping clothes, and heard the full tale of Master Dickey’s adventure from the lawyer himself. The little Scot was not at his best; he had discovered in returning his pistol to its drawer that it had not been loaded and, in consequence, his report was less calm and ordered than it should have been. Rogers received it without comment and passed on into the long panelled study where the prisoner awaited him. 2. THE STRATAGEM (#u7403762a-3d4b-5794-97ae-6a681d9b1363) Dismissing the guard with instructions that sentries be posted in the passage and outside the window, Rogers seated himself behind the long polished table which served him for a desk. Master Dickey took his place unobtrusively at his own smaller table by the window while the Governor considered the tall seaman who stood before him. Woodes Rogers at this time was slightly past his prime, although still young to have reached the eminence to which his talents had raised him. Discoverer, circumnavigator, sea-fighter and administrator, to his fellow-countrymen in that second decade of the eighteenth century he was comparable with Drake and Raleigh, and not least because of his privateering exploits in the South Sea against the old enemy, Spain. These, incidentally, had made him immensely rich. Tall, spare and active in spite of the greying hair at his temples, he had the air of one completely masterful and self-possessed. The light from the slender candles threw into relief his prominent nose and high cheek-bones; in spite of an expression which was naturally severe and the puckered scars where a Spanish musket-ball had shattered his jaw he was not unhandsome. His mouth was large and generous and his grey eyes startlingly bright against his weather-beaten skin. They ranged briefly now over the tall figure before him. ‘Your name?’ The big man shifted his weight on to his other foot and said easily: ‘John Rackham.’ Woodes Rogers’ eyes opened a little wider and then he pushed the candlebranch away very deliberately and repeated the name. ‘John Rackham. Also known as Calico Jack.’ The big man smiled faintly and nodded. ‘So they call me,’ he said, with a touch of pride in his voice. Master Dickey was conscious of a certain coolness on his spine which was not caused by the night air. Of course he knew the name, as he knew the names of ‘Blackbeard’ Ned Teach and Stede Bonnet and every other freebooter of note in the Caribbean waters. But it was one thing to know the name and quite another to be sitting within a few paces of the man himself and to recall that only a few moments earlier he had been trying conclusions with him in a darkened room with an unloaded pistol. This Rackham, he recalled, had been one of the pirate brotherhood at New Providence in those fateful days when Woodes Rogers had brought his ships to the island and sent in his proclamation demanding their surrender with the promise of Royal pardon for all who complied. And Rackham had been quartermaster to the pirate Charles Vane who fired on Rogers’ ships and fought his way out of the harbour, since when there had been a price on the heads of Vane, Rackham, and the rest of their ship’s company. That was two years ago, and in that time Vane’s notoriety had spread from end to end of the western seas. There had been his exploit against the Spanish silver fleet in the Florida Gulf and talk of a great treasure taken – the heat with which the Spaniards’ protests had been urged at St James’ was proof to a knowledgeable world of the blow their pockets must have suffered, and Vane’s stock had mounted accordingly. Of Rackham himself little was known by comparison, and Master Dickey cast back mentally in search of anything he had heard. He thought he recalled the fellow’s seamanship being highly spoken of, and he had something of a reputation as a gallant, too. There had been some mention of a woman whom he was to have married in New Providence before he and Vane had fled … Master Dickey could not be sure. But for the moment his very presence was sensation enough and Master Dickey felt a not unpleasant excitement once his first surprise had settled. Woodes Rogers, his voice as level as ever, said: ‘I must suppose there is some reason why you should thrust your head into a noose by coming here. For that is what you have done, you realise?’ Rackham’s smile faded, but he gave no other sign of apprehension. ‘If I’d thought that, I’d not be here. I’ve no wish to decorate a gibbet yet awhile, though I can understand your Excellency’s haste to find one for me. You see me on an errand of mercy, or rather an errand of pardon, which in this case you may think the same thing.’ Woodes Rogers sat back in his chair, staring, and then his brows contracted in an angry frown. ‘Pardon? Do I understand that you come here seeking that? You, that for two years have been at large as a pirate, with a price on your head? By God, ye deserve to hang for insolence, if nothing else.’ He made a gesture of impatience. ‘I must suppose that you are as great a fool as you are a knave if you imagine I’ll talk to you of pardons. I have a sharp medicine for pirates, Master Rackham, as you’ll find, and it is not compounded of pardons but of hemp. Dickey, call me the guard.’ Rackham stared at him for a second, then shrugged and smiled crookedly. ‘As ye please,’ he said. ‘If ye’re bent on losing a fine ship and a hundred prime seamen for the King’s service it’s your own affair. Call them in and have done.’ ‘What’s this?’ Rogers came round the table to confront the pirate. ‘What ship’s this?’ He waved Master Dickey back to his chair. Rackham answered confidently: ‘My brig, the Kingston, with my lads aboard. Did ye suppose I swam to Providence?’ There was a moment of dead silence, and Master Dickey watched fascinated the two men facing each other by the table. Somewhere out in the darkness of the sea beyond the rollers washing against Hog Island was a ship manned by desperate men, and Tobias realised that Rogers was faced with a remarkable and difficult situation. Rogers was realising it too. He put his hands behind him on the edge of the table and leaned against it. ‘Where is she?’ he asked. ‘Offshore.’ Rogers’ eyes narrowed. ‘I’ve a mind to squeeze it out of you,’ he said. ‘You could try,’ said Rackham. ‘And, as I said, ye could lose a ship to the King’s service. To say nothing of the men.’ That was the point. Rogers’ commission to suppress piracy was of no greater importance than his duty to maintain a force of privateers for the safety of British possessions and the enrichment of the Treasury. Hence a pardoned pirate enlisted as a privateersman was a double gain to the government. Suddenly the situation was utterly simple: a hundred outlaws seeking pardon on the one hand, and Governor Rogers, holding the power to pardon, and urgently requiring crews for his privateers, on the other. Both stood to gain and there was nothing to lose. It was all so convenient that Rogers distrusted it instinctively. Why, he wondered, this sudden zeal for an honest life on the part of a crew of scoundrels? Rogers had been next door to a pirate himself, he knew the pros and cons of life on ‘the great account’, and he knew that not since the days of Modyford and Morgan had the filibusters enjoyed such a fruitful harvest as now. With men and ships urgently needed for the fleets in European waters the Caribbean squadrons were stretched to their uttermost, and piracy was as safe as it could ever hope to be. And none would know that better than Calico Jack Rackham. This was not one who would exchange piracy for privateering without some powerful motive, and it was imperative for Rogers to discover what that motive was. ‘We’ll leave the whereabouts of your brig for the moment. Be sure I shall find it when I desire.’ The Governor walked slowly round the table to his seat. ‘Of this request for pardon by yourself and your followers – you’ll do me the credit to suppose that it is not prompted by sudden reformation. Perhaps you will supply me some reason. Your own, personally.’ Rackham’s answer was prompt. ‘Two years ago, just before you came to Providence, I was to have married – a lady here, in this town. You’ll mind that in those days I was quartermaster to Vane, who then commanded the Kingston. He refused the pardon, ye’ll remember, and fired on your vessels as they entered harbour. As bad luck had it, I was aboard, and willy-nilly I must sail away with him. I had wanted that pardon – by God I had wanted it.’ He leaned forward as he spoke, and his dark face was suddenly grim. ‘But there it was. Every man aboard the Kingston was outlaw from that day forward, or so we supposed. Myself with the rest. But things have altered over two years. Vane is gone, and Yeates, too – it was Yeates that touched off the first gun against you in the harbour fight. And so, when I heard a few weeks back from a friend who had lately been in Providence that my lady was still unwed – for I’d never heard of her in those two years – the notion took me that perhaps the pardon might not be out of reach after all. I thought that if the law will let bygones be bygones, well, I might pick up where I left off.’ He gave a deprecatory shrug. ‘Provided she’s of the same mind as she was two years gone. When she learns how it fell out, I think she will be.’ Woodes Rogers studied him with interest. ‘She must have considerable attractions,’ he mused. ‘Who is she?’ ‘Her name is Sampson,’ said Rackham. ‘Kate Sampson. Her father has plantations –’ he broke off at the sudden clatter as Master Tobias’s pounce-box fell from his table, dislodged by the little lawyer’s uncontrollable start. And in turning in the direction of the interruption, Rackham did not see the colour drain abruptly from Rogers’ face at the mention of that name. When he looked back again the Governor had one elbow on the table and his face was shaded by his hand. ‘You’ll know him,’ Rackham concluded. ‘An honest little man.’ Woodes Rogers did not reply, but he rose abruptly and walked over towards Dickey’s desk. There he stopped, as though undecided, his back to Rackham, looking over Dickey’s head towards the windows. The lawyer, glancing at his face from the corner of his eye, saw it strained and ugly, and when the Governor spoke again, his voice was unusally hard. ‘That explains your own reason. What of your followers?’ ‘We put it to a vote; the majority were for coming in. The others had the choice of coming or not, as they pleased, but they fell in with the rest of us.’ ‘Why?’ snapped Rogers. ‘Surely some must have preferred to find employment with another pirate captain?’ ‘With twenty thousand pounds’ worth of silver in the Kingston to share when they get shore with a Royal pardon under their belts?’ Rackham was amused. ‘Not they.’ Rogers wheeled on him like lightning. This time he made no attempt to conceal his stupefaction. ‘What did you say?’ His voice was strained with disbelief. ‘Twenty thousand pounds of silver,’ Rackham repeated. ‘Taken from the Spaniards in the Gulf of Florida. There was more, but it’s gone now. Still, they look to what’s left to see them snugly provided for ashore.’ Rogers for once was at a loss to preserve his calm. ‘Are you mad?’ he burst out. ‘D’ye suppose for a moment they’ll be permitted to keep it? God’s light!’ He wheeled on Dickey. ‘Was there ever such effrontery? They’ll have the pardon, will they, and keep their plunder too?’ ‘Spanish silver,’ corrected Rackham. ‘Plunder if you will, but the British Crown has no right to it.’ Rogers bridled like an angry cat. ‘Will you talk to me of right?’ He strode forward, glaring at Rackham. ‘Listen, listen but a moment, Master Pirate.’ It was all he could do to speak coherently, so great was his rage. ‘That silver, or any other loot you may have, is forfeit to the King. That you will understand now. By God, I marvel at you! I do, as I live! Do you know where you stand, or must I inform you? I’ll see you and your crew of mangy robbers sunk and damned before you’ll have one penny of that silver, aye, and I am Woodes Rogers that say it! You seek the pardon, you say. Then, by heaven, you’ll sail your brig into this port, silver and all, and surrender every ounce, or you’ll not only see no pardon, I’ll have every man-jack of you sun-dried in chains.’ Any normal man’s composure would have been shattered by that tirade, but Rackham simply shook his head. ‘They’ll never agree,’ he protested. ‘I feared ye might bilk at letting them keep all, but a portion …’ ‘Not a penny.’ Rogers’ voice was suddenly dreadfully soft. ‘And when you tell me they’ll refuse and sail away I’ll remind you that there is one who will not sail with them, and that one is yourself. You thought my need for privateers so urgent, I suppose, that I should be forced to grant you pardons on your own terms. You learn your error. Not that you’ll profit by it. For I intend to do what I proposed at first: I’ll have the position of your ship and aught else I need to know wrung from you before the hour is out.’ Master Dickey had never seen him in such a venomous rage, and looked to see the pirate shrink appalled. But although Rackham must have known the danger in which he stood his voice was steady. ‘Myself I don’t care what becomes of the silver. That’s my crew’s demand, not mine. I …’ ‘So you say now,’ sneered Rogers. ‘In effect it does not matter. I have the means at hand to possess myself of your ship, your men, and your silver. For that last the government can afford to forgo your hundred prime seamen. They’ll hang very neatly in a row, yourself among them.’ The very confidence in the Governor’s voice, its jeering note, stung Rackham as his threats had not been able to do. ‘You’ll pay a rare price for it, then,’ he retorted. ‘Aye, you may do as you please with me, but if you think to catch those lads of mine napping you must have forgotten all you learned in the South Sea. Did I come here unprepared, d’ye think? Why, there are men of mine in the town at this moment, and unless I’m back with them within the hour that brig of mine will be hull down and away before you can even force me to tell you where she lies, much less get your bum-boats out of harbour and after her.’ His lip curled in a grin of vindictive triumph. ‘And if by chance ye closed with her, how many of those precious men of yours would live to bring her to port? You’ll find the price of silver marvellously high, supposing you get it.’ He laughed contemptuously. ‘And ye know ye won’t. For they’ll fight till she sinks under them, and the dollars will be as far as ever from the King’s pocket.’ Now this was the stark truth and Rogers knew it. But for the anger which had possessed him he must have known that the threats he had spoken were empty ones. He should have realised it, but his mind had been further distracted by that name – Kate Sampson – a moment before. That and the sudden revelation of the fortunes which these rascals possessed had upset the normal balance of his reasoning. For a moment he stood, grimly silent, then he paced back to his chair and sat down. ‘You would give much for this pardon, would you not?’ ‘Ye know I’d not be here else.’ ‘And a moment since you told us that the silver meant nothing to you. As I see it, you would have no need of it, since the lady you intend to marry’ – his tone hardened imperceptibly – ‘is well provided for.’ ‘That’s not why I seek her, but it’s so – yes.’ ‘Then I see no reason why we should not reach an arrangement that will suit us both,’ said Rogers evenly. ‘In return for the surrender of your brig and its cargo I shall grant you a pardon.’ He paused and Rackham looked at him in bewilderment. ‘But the crew …’ Rogers’ lips moved in what was almost a smile. ‘They need not concern us. At least they do not concern me, and I cannot suppose that they concern you.’ ‘D’ye mean you expect me to betray them?’ Rogers displayed impatience. ‘Come, man, you are not a schoolboy. I’ve seen as much and more of thieves than you, and I never yet found honour enough among them to cover a flea-bite. Are you different from the rest? If so, you can carry your principles higher yet – to the gibbet. For it’s there I’ll send you – not to-morrow, or the day after, but now, and take my chance of finding your brig.’ He paused deliberately. ‘So choose. A pardon or a rope.’ Rackham stared at him and suddenly exploded in an exclamation of impatience. ‘There’s no way it can be done,’ he protested. ‘Ye cannot have me go back and tell them you’ve agreed to grant them pardons and they can keep their silver, and then cheat them at the last. Your own credit would be dead for ever, with honest men as well as rogues. And if I was to be the betrayer, and gave you the ship’s position now, and ye took them and the treasure, what use would your pardon be to me? It would be a death warrant, for when it was known I’d sold them they’d have a knife in my back before I could wink.’ Rogers was contemptuous. ‘It would not be known. What I propose would be among the three of us.’ He gestured to include Master Dickey. ‘Well?’ Rackham considered him through narrowed lids. ‘What becomes of my crew?’ ‘Unless they are extremely rash, no harm at all. Provided, that is, that the plan I have in mind is carried through precisely as I shall direct.’ Rogers rose, a lean, commanding figure. ‘That will depend on you as much as on any.’ He moved round the table, halting face to face with Rackham. ‘Can you hesitate?’ He laughed shortly. ‘If so, you are a greater fool than I take you for, or else you carry scruples to an odd length. Farther than I should carry them myself. For I’d not hang for the sake of a pack of brigands.’ He knew, of course, that there could be only one answer for Rackham, or for anyone in the same position. The pirate hooked his thumbs into his belt and considered the Governor. ‘Let me hear,’ he said. It was tantamount to an acceptance, and Rogers propounded his plan as a commander issues instructions. ‘It will be very simple. You will return to these men of yours in the town. Tell them my terms were unconditional surrender of themselves and the treasure; tell them that when you refused I would have tortured and hanged you and taken the Kingston by force. But you escaped, and now nothing remains but to fly to sea. This should satisfy them. Now, listen. You and your men in town will then return to the Kingston this evening, so giving me the day in which to make my preparations, for which I’ll need the exact position at which the brig is to take you aboard. I take it you came ashore in a small boat, and the Kingston is to stand inshore to take you off.’ Without pausing for a reply he swept on. ‘When she does, I shall be ready for her. I shall have a cutting-out force at hand – a ship and longboats. It will be so strong that there can be no question of resistance on your part. If perchance there are some hotheads ready to fight you will dissuade them. But I doubt there will be. Then you will surrender, and the terms will be a pardon for those who lay down their arms. In the circumstances your crew should be too relieved to fret over the loss of their plunder.’ He had been pacing up and down as he spoke. Now he stopped and went back to his seat. ‘Of course, it will not do for you to leave here to-night as easily as you came. You will escape, and, as I say, take back to your friends a tale of a bloody-minded Governor who would have hanged you and swore to hunt them down. You may think that such a tale will be at variance with the offer of pardon that I shall make you when the Kingston is at my mercy to-night. On the contrary it will be seen then that I serve the King’s interests by such an offer, since it assures me of the treasure, a ship, and a hundred excellent seamen. They may think me an infernally clever fellow to have found them out, but I enjoy some such reputation already. Certainly they will not suspect you.’ His calm confidence left Rackham in no doubt that he could carry out exactly what he had promised. Yet because the pirate had more of principle than was usual in his kind, he hesitated. ‘It’s dirty,’ he said bluntly, and Rogers was almost amused. ‘Pitch defiles those who touch it, but its mark is less permanent than that left by a rope round the neck. That is your choice, and, on my soul, if you can pause over it I swear you’re over-nice for your trade.’ Frowning, Rackham considered; then he shrugged. ‘It seems there is no choice. I’ll do as you say.’ Rogers nodded to Dickey to take up his pen. ‘Since we are agreed,’ he said, ‘where is your ship?’ ‘Five miles out. She comes in at midnight. There are four of us ashore. Our boat is beached in a cove a mile west of the town, and we meet the Kingston a mile offshore, due north.’ Master Dickey’s pen flew over the paper. ‘We carry thirty guns.’ He paused. ‘What else?’ Rogers had been nodding at each point mentioned. ‘Where will you hide to-night?’ he asked, adding: ‘There must be a hue and cry when you break away from here: it were best if we knew where the patrols must not look for you.’ ‘We’ll be at the Lady of Holland,’ said Rackham, and Rogers inwardly approved the choice. It lay on the west of the town, in an unsavoury neighbourhood, convenient to the cove Rackham had mentioned. A few more questions he asked and glanced at the clock. ‘Then the sooner we set about it the better,’ he said. He looked at Rackham. ‘Let me remind you that it will not be to your interest at all to attempt to cross me in this. You walk on a tight-rope, Master Rackham; slip, and I’ll see you swing by it.’ With that he turned to Master Dickey. ‘There is a guard beyond the window who must be removed. Bid the sergeant bring him round into the house. Wait; not yet a moment. First slip the bar from the shutters so that Master Rackham may have free passage.’ Dickey obeyed, like a man in a trance. This night’s work was proving too much for him. Life as he knew it was not like this, with no decent interval between thought and action. It was inconceivable that such a hare-brained scheme, so hastily considered, should be put so abruptly into operation; he had yet to learn that in the Indies prompt decision was not so much a virtue as a necessity, and that to pause for second thoughts was to delay too long. He removed the bar from the shutters and laid it down. Rogers nodded towards the door. ‘Call him now. Perhaps it might be best,’ he added to Rackham, ‘if you upset my secretary’s table as you pass,’ and the pirate nodded. Dickey was past being shocked: it was all of a piece with the rest and his only concern, he told himself morbidly, was to do as he was told. He went to the door and called the sergeant, and as the soldier presented himself Rogers issued his orders. ‘This man to the guard-room, sergeant.’ He indicated Rackham. ‘Bring your sentry from the garden to make an escort with the others. I’ll take no chances with this gentleman: he is Calico Jack Rackham, the notorious pirate, so look to him closely.’ The sergeant’s eyes bulged at Rackham, and then he was bawling orders in the passage. There was a clatter of running feet and then a voice shouted outside the house. They heard a musket-butt grate on the gravel, followed by the sound of the sentry doubling round in answer to the summons. The sergeant advanced purposefully on Rackham and was within a few feet of him before the pirate moved: Dickey would not have believed that a man of such size could be so nimble. Two quick strides he took before vaulting over Dickey’s table, and then the shutters were flung back and he was away. With a bellow of anger and surprise the sergeant lumbered forward. ‘Stop, you! Stop, thief!’ He ploughed across to the window. ‘You, there, sentry! Damn you, where are you? After him!’ He flung one gaitered leg across the sill and tumbled over on to the verandah. ‘Shoot, you bloody fool, there’s a traitor escaping!’ They heard the sentry’s blasphemous exclamation and then a babble of shouts and orders with the sergeant’s bellowings providing the central theme. A shot rang out, and then another before the sergeant succeeded in organising the pursuit. Rogers and Dickey stood listening as the noise of that hopeless search grew fainter, and they were still waiting when the sergeant returned and reported that the fugitive was nowhere to be found. Rogers wasted no time on recriminations. He ordered a general alarm and at his dictation Dickey penned a note to the commander of the Fort to set a company on the hunt. Rogers signed it and handed it to the perspiring sergeant before dismissing him. Then he sat back in his chair. ‘So far, very well,’ he observed. But Master Dickey, who had a gift for essentials, was pondering an uncomfortable detail which had been at the back of his mind for the past half hour – a detail which, it seemed to him, should have been causing the Governor much concern. He cleared his throat. ‘Ye’ll pardon me, sir,’ he began, ‘if I find a fault – or what seems tae me tae be a fault – in this scheme of yours.’ Rogers looked up. ‘Tell me.’ Dickey nodded towards the window. ‘This pirate, Rackham, is only lending himself tae your plan for one thing: tae get a pardon and marry. What’ll happen when all’s done and he finds oot the truth aboot – aboot Mistress Sampson?’ Rogers frowned, then shrugged. ‘Why, what should happen? He can do nothing: he will stand in a very tight place, to be sure, for if one breath of what has passed here ever reaches his associates Master Rackham’s time will be up. Oh, granted he will conceive himself cheated, but he can attempt nothing against me, for he will know that I have only to drop a word and he’ll be a dead man. So he must stew in his anger, I’m afraid.’ Master Dickey pursed his lips. ‘You would be a bad enemy.’ ‘I’ve known worse. And his hands will be tied. No, I do not think we should fret over Calico Jack. He will have his pardon, which is more than he deserves.’ Master Dickey frowned and sighed in turn. ‘I’ll be happy to see it by and done wi’,’ he confessed. ‘You shall,’ Rogers promised him. ‘We hold the cards, from the ace down, and among them is the knave. A Calico Jack.’ 3. SEA TRAP (#ulink_a7f89d0b-623e-5a29-870b-136b36a5ce87) The Lady of Holland enjoyed the doubtful distinction of being the least noisome drinking-shop on the waterfront. Rackham had chosen it because the proprietor was trustworthy – his confidence having been obtained by substantial payment backed by coldly delivered threats – and because it was convenient to the cove where the boat was hidden. Furthermore, the approach of any search party would be heralded by swift warnings running through the alleys like tremors through a web. He strode through the lanes with elation mounting in his thoughts. He was nearer now to his ambition than he had been at any time in the past two years, and even the knowledge that a hazardous and highly dangerous twenty-four hours lay ahead could not depress him. He had set out for the Governor’s house that night with only a vague hope, but now the way seemed clear at last, and barring accidents he could count himself a free and pardoned man. He had no doubt that the Governor’s scheme would succeed – he knew something of men and Rogers had impressed him as one who did not permit his plans to go awry. And then – Kate Sampson: the thought of her could send a thrilling urgency through Rackham’s veins. It had been a long time: two years, two ugly, hard years in which he had given her up and come near to forgetting her altogether until that chance meeting with Hedley Archer when he had learned that she was still unmarried. Then, in a few moments, all the old fire had been renewed, all the old memories reawakened, and with them the sudden determination to bridge the years of separation and take up again the course that had been so abruptly broken. He did not for a moment doubt that he could win her back again, for he chose to see in the fact that she was still unwed an indication that she had found no one to replace him. He was ready to concede that appearances were against him – on the face of it he had deserted her almost on the eve of their marriage – but he was confident that when she realised that he had been forced to leave her against his will and had thereafter supposed himself cut off from her irrevocably, she would understand and forgive him. Nor was this pure egotism on his part: he had truly loved her and knew that his love had been returned. Had it been otherwise their courtship would never have endured as it had done. Her father, Jonah Sampson, had risen from the poorest beginnings to the control of broad plantations not only in the Bahamas but in Jamaica as well. His wealth was enormous, and in the circumstances it was to have been expected that he would use it to purchase for his only child a brilliant marriage to some nobleman of long pedigree and short purse. But Jonah Sampson was out of the common run of West Indian nabobs; he had spent his early life in the American colonies where ability was preferable to Norman blood, and had learned to put a low value on inherited nobility. Nor was he bound by any sentimental ties to his homeland; his life’s work lay in the New World, and it was his dream that the dynasty of commerce which he had founded should continue and expand long after his lifetime. His first concern was that Kate’s husband should be what Master Sampson called a man; and Rackham had passed the test, despite his pirate trade. The second point was that Kate obviously adored him, and Sampson respected her judgement, child of seventeen though she was then. To a civilised world his decision would have seemed monstrous, but the Bahamas of those days were only half-civilised, and no hard and fast line could be drawn between those who lived within the law and those who lived beyond it. More than one notable fortune had been founded with a cutlass edge wielded within the loose limits of legality in the days of the buccaneers, and because those limits had been tightened of recent years did not, in Master Sampson’s view, make those who now lived by plunder one whit worse than their predecessors. At any rate, buccaneer or pirate, Jack Rackham was a likely lad and good enough for him. So the wooing had prospered until that night of blood and fire when the King’s ships had sailed on Providence, and the next dawn had seen Rackham at sea with Vane, a hunted fugitive. But now Vane was dead, and Rackham felt that he was within an ace of completing a circle and coming back to Kate and the life they had planned together. Three members of his crew awaited him at the Lady of Holland: Bull, the huge, yellow-bearded Yorkshireman, whose strength and courage matched his name; Malloy, a wrinkled old sea-rover, a little simple these days, but of such great experience that his voice was listened to in the Kingston’s councils; and Ben, Rackham’s lieutenant, steady, dependable, merchantman turned pirate. When Rackham had crossed the darkened common-room of the inn, picking his way among its snoring occupants, and tapped softly on the inner room door, he was admitted with a speed and smoothness that bespoke his comrades’ long practice in conspiracy and secret business. A rush-light flickered, and he saw Ben and Bull on either side of the door and Malloy beyond the table with a taper in his hand. He pushed the latch to behind him. ‘What’s the word, cap’n?’ Malloy came round the table. Rackham leaned his shoulders on the door and looked round at the three faces. He shook his head, and speaking softly so as not to be overheard in the outer room, told them what had befallen at the Governor’s house – told them, that is, all but the plan that Woodes Rogers had concerted. He embroidered, for their benefit, the account of his own escape, and painted a picture of Woodes Rogers which was perhaps more severe than the Governor deserved. They heard him out, Malloy with unconcealed disappointment, Bull with occasional angry rumblings in his throat and muttered imprecations, and Ben with unmoved attention. But there was no question that they believed him. When he had done Bull flung down on a bench and cursed Woodes Rogers with vicious fury. Malloy sat dejected, and Ben went over to the table and poured out a drink for Rackham. Holding out the pannikin he said: ‘You was lucky.’ Rackham took the pannikin. ‘Lucky enough. As close to hanging as I ever hope to be.’ That at least was true. ‘Aye, well, and now what?’ Bull’s tone challenged him. ‘What’s to be done?’ Rackham applied himself to his drink before surveying his questioner. ‘What else but to go back aboard the Kingston? To-night, when Bennett brings her in.’ ‘Hell, and is that all? And we’re to sit here in this poxy kennel all day and wait for the sojers to nab us? Mebbe they’ll find our boat, by God, and then we’ll be on a lee shore proper.’ He swore and slapped the table. ‘We should never ha’ come: I knew it when there was first talk o’ this pardon. Pardon! What bloody hope was there we’d ever smell pardon?’ Ben turned contemptuous eyes on the speaker but said nothing. Rackham answered calmly. ‘There was hope until we knew what manner of man this Governor was: others had been pardoned, and so might we if we had not carried such a wealth of silver in the Kingston. Now we know where we stand, and ye’ll remember it was I who found out, and came near paying for it with my neck while you sat snug here.’ ‘Snug?’ Bull rose in a towering rage. ‘Ye’ll tell me, perhaps—’ ‘Be still,’ said Rackham coldly. ‘The thing’s done and there’s an end. We’re no worse off than we were before, the soldiers won’t find us here if they hunt till doomsday, and there’s a boat-load of silver out yonder to play with when we’re clear away from here. So sleep on that and think yourself lucky.’ Bull was silenced; as Rackham said, they had lost nothing and the risk had been his. While the three others might be disappointed they could accept the situation with the fatalism of their kind. It was the code by which they lived; gentlemen of fortune they styled themselves, and sudden success or failure were no more than tricks won or lost in a game which was unpredictable and in which there was no ultimate goal. To-morrow was another day, and would find them back at sea again. And they still had the silver. So the three slept soundly enough, while Rackham lay on the hard boards, staring up into the darkness, contemplating his treachery and finding that he felt not the least qualms about what he intended to do. As Rogers had said, his followers would never have hesitated to betray him, if their interests had demanded it. He had only to think of Kate, and the plot he had concerted with Rogers seemed morally right enough. So presently he too slept, while the eastern sky lightened outside, and the patrols which scoured the town left them undisturbed. They slipped out of a side door of the inn that evening, and made their ways separately to a little alley on the edge of the town. Before them spread the broad silver sweep of the beach, as smooth and dazzling as a snow-field. To the right it was washed gently by the surf; to the left it merged through varied-hued shadows into the inland undergrowth. The cove where their boat lay concealed was a mile to the westward and their path ran just within the belt of palms and bushes fringing the sand. Here they were hidden and could move swiftly and silently, Ben in the lead, Malloy and Bull together, and Rackham in the rear. Moonlight slanted in ghostly rays between the tangled stems, making little pools of silver in the darkness; it was very still, but there was a hint of wind coming from the sea, and before their journey was over the moon had slid behind the cloud-wrack. It was as well, Rackham thought. Woodes Rogers’ trap would spring all the better in the dark, provided his cutting-out party could find the Kingston when she stood in. It would take a good seaman to do that, but Rogers would have a good seaman. Counting his steps Rackham had reckoned just over sixteen hundred when a parrot squeaked in the darkness ahead. That was Ben signalling that he had reached the cove, and a few moments later the four of them were crouched in the lee of a little cliff with the water lapping at their feet. Between the two small bluffs at the end of the cove lay the open sea, and close by was their boat, beached beneath the overhang of a great boulder and artfully screened by loose bushes. Since they could hardly hope to float her without some noise they sacrificed silence to speed, flinging aside the branches and running the boat between them over the loose sand to the water’s edge. With Ben and Bull at the oars, Malloy in the bow, and Rackham in the stern, they poled the boat out of the shallows and were soon scudding out between the bluffs to the sea. With the exception of Malloy, who was to look out for the Kingston, they watched the shore receding behind them. The black mouth of the little creek grew smaller, flanked by the vaguely glimmering beach. Then darkness closed in on the little boat, bringing with it a sense of unprotected loneliness: Malloy fidgeted in the bows, casting anxious glances astern until Rackham bade him keep watch in front of him. Ben and Bull, pulling strongly, were sending the boat through the water at a fair speed, and when Rackham calculated that they must be fifteen hundred yards from the shore he ordered them to cease rowing. They rested on their oars, listening while the boat rode the light swell, their ears straining for the tell-tale creak of cord and timber which would herald the presence of the Kingston. But no sound came, save the gentle slapping of the waves against the boat and the occasional scrape of the oars in the rowlocks. Rackham felt the light drift of spray on his cheek. The wind was freshening and blowing almost dead inshore. Ben noticed it at the same moment. ‘It’s going to be easier for the Kingston to come in than to stand out again,’ he muttered. ‘What d’ye say?’ Bull’s head came up. ‘Bigod, ye’re right!’ He strained his eyes into the darkness seaward. ‘She’s beginning to blow, the windy bitch!’ The little boat was beginning to rock appreciably now, and Rackham gave the order to commence rowing again. They must not drift inshore: if the wind strengthened they might find themselves hard put to it to stand out to the Kingston. ‘Where the hell are they?’ snarled Bull suddenly. He kept turning his head at the end of each stroke to watch for the Kingston. ‘Wait! In oars!’ Malloy, craning over the bow, flung out a hand behind him. ‘I hear something.’ They ceased rowing, and Rackham, straining his ears against the noises of the sea, leaned forward between them. ‘Listen!’ Malloy turned his head towards them. ‘D’ye hear nothing?’ Holding their breath, they listened, and sure enough from somewhere in the gloom ahead came the faint but unmistakable creak of a ship. Bull breathed a gusty sigh of relief. ‘Wait for the light,’ ordered Rackham. He alone knew that there were other vessels than the Kingston on the coast that night, and he was taking no chances. For several minutes they sat motionless, the little boat riding the swell, waiting to catch the flicker of a lantern from the ship. Then Malloy snapped his fingers and pointed, over to starboard. Following his finger they saw it: a single murky glimmer in the darkness which vanished almost as quickly as it had come. ‘Pull,’ snapped Rackham. ‘Those blasted farmers are so far east they’ll be in Africa before we can catch ’em!’ But Ben and Bull needed no urging. They swung on the oars like men rowing a race, driving the little boat towards the spot where the light had vanished, and suddenly the great bulk of the ship loomed above them out of the blackness. ‘’Vast heaving,’ said Rackham. ‘It’s Kingston. Give them a hail, Malloy.’ Malloy stood up, one hand braced against the thwart, the other cupped to his mouth. ‘Kingston, ahoy! It’s Cap’n Rackham!’ And pat on the heels of his cry, like the voice of an actor on his cue, came back an answering hail. But it was not from the Kingston. Somewhere in the darkness to the eastward, a voice rang out: ‘In the King’s name!’ Even Rackham, prepared as he was for some intervention, was startled into an oath. That hail had certainly not been more than a quarter of a mile away, which meant that Rogers’ ship, somewhere out there in the darkness, had carried out its task to perfection. Bull heaved himself up with a roar of blasphemous astonishment, stumbled against Malloy and nearly sent him into the sea. The boat swung out of control, with Bull’s oar floating away behind it, and then Ben brought her head round to the Kingston. From the sounds that drifted down from the Kingston, the ship must have been thrown into utter confusion. A harsh New England voice which Rackham recognised as that of Bennett, his sailing master, was trying to issue orders through the tumult of shouts and fearful questions that had broken the stupified silence following that command from the darkness. And then the noise was stilled as though each man’s throat had been choked simultaneously. A broad blade of flame licked out suddenly in the blackness to the eastward, dwindled, kindled, and blossomed into a great torch that illumined the sea and flung the Kingston into sharp silhouette against its crimson glare. While Rackham stared the drift of the boat carried them into the Kingston’s shadow and he realised that they were in danger of slipping out of reach of the ship, crippled as they were by the loss of an oar. ‘Pull!’ he shouted, and Ben flung his weight on the remaining oar. Rackham thrust the tiller over and they edged in towards the Kingston’s side. Bull was shattering the night with his bawling. He was of the slow-witted kind who, when danger appears unheralded, must first of all identify it loudly for their own benefit and that of their fellows. ‘It’s the King’s men!’ he roared. ‘It’s the King’s men!’ The nose of the boat thumped the Kingston’s side. The arrival of the King’s force had been premature, and might have been disastrous with Rackham still in the boat when the success of Rogers’ plan demanded that he should be on the Kingston to supervise her surrender. Every second counted, for at any moment Bennett might open fire and ruin all. He swung himself on to the rail and took in at a glance the astonishing scene. Beyond the Kingston the sea was as bright as day, revealing three fully manned longboats within two cables’ lengths of the Kingston, and behind them, on the verge of that great circle of light, towering over the scene, a tall ship which could be nothing other than a man-of-war. Rackham, gaining the deck, saw at once what had produced the dazzling light which illuminated the sea between the Kingston and the Governor’s little fleet. Between two of the longboats floated a large raft on which burned a great pile of lumber. Obviously they had towed it between them, and as soon as Malloy’s hail had been heard the order had been given to fire the highly combustible mass. Even as Rackham’s feet touched the deck another great tongue of flame shot up into the darkness, this time farther out to sea. A second raft had been set alight. ‘Stand by to go about!’ bawled Rackham. It was a hopeless order but at least it should give the Kingston’s crew proof of his intentions. ‘Lively, damn you! D’you want to be taken?’ It was Ben, acting promptly, who might have saved the situation for the pirates, and brought Woodes Rogers’ plans to nothing. Leaping among the bemused crowd of seamen on the Kingston’s deck, he cuffed and kicked them into some semblance of order, driving them aloft to work the ship while Bennett, taking authority upon himself, ran down to take what charge he could of the larboard guns. Fortunately for Rackham and Rogers, the pirate at the wheel lost his head, and abandoning his charge, ran to take cover below. Rackham, bellowing an oath, scrambled up the ladder towards the poop, slipped intentionally and fell sprawling. He saw Ben coming across the deck, his face contorted with rage, but even as his lieutenant reached his side the boom of a gun rang out across the water and a shot whistled past the Kingston’s bows and whined away into the darkness. Ben pulled up short, glaring over his shoulder towards the longboats. ‘Damn the drunk dogs!’ he shouted. ‘Cowardly bloody scum!’ For once his emotions had the better of him, and he raged and stamped, furious at the impotence of the rabble on the Kingston’s deck. Some were clustered like sheep about the mainmast, others had run below, while another party were dropping over the side into the boat which Rackham had just left. ‘Save your breath, Ben.’ Rackham pointed and his lieutenant groaned. The King’s ship was gliding across the fire-gleaming water, cutting off the Kingston’s escape, while the three long-boats were closing in. ‘That’s the Unicorn,’ said Rackham. ‘She can blow us out of the water whenever she’s a mind to.’ ‘We can fight her, cap’n!’ Ben, having seen one chance slip away, sought desperately to seize another. ‘Them flares won’t last for ever. See, they’re burning down now! If we can hold her off till they go out we can make open sea yet!’ ‘With those to man the ship and fight her too?’ Rackham gestured towards the disordered huddle of men in the waist. ‘What odds? It’s Execution Dock if we’re taken. There’s still a chance, for Christ’s sake!’ ‘If you can—’ Rackham was beginning, when he was cut short. The voice that had hailed the Kingston a few moments before was raised again from the leading longboat, now within pistol shot of the Kingston’s side. ‘In the King’s name! Lay down your arms!’ In the silence that followed Rackham could hear Bennett’s muffled voice forward exhorting the gunners. The fool would be letting fly in a moment. ‘Go forrard,’ he snapped. ‘Take command of the guns. Fire when I give the order, but not before.’ To his relief, Ben obeyed. With the lieutenant in charge, he could be sure that no shot would be fired from the Kingston unless he wished it. ‘Do you surrender? We have you at our mercy.’ The commander of the longboats was hailing again. Every face on the Kingston’s deck was turned aft. Rackham walked over to the rail and shouted: ‘Keep your distance! You’re under our guns. Come closer and we’ll blow you to Florida!’ To his surprise his words brought a ragged cheer from the pirates in the waist. He noticed uneasily that one or two of the hardier spirits were passing arms among their fellows, and some, already armed; were crouching in the shelter of the rail. They might fight after all. And the flares on the rafts were beginning to burn lower. On the other hand, the Unicorn was standing in to point-blank range. ‘You may trust in His Majesty’s mercy,’ shouted the voice from the longboat again. ‘Governor Woodes Rogers has pledged his word that no harm will come to those who prove themselves loyal by immediate surrender.’ ‘No harm?’ Rackham was echoing the thoughts of his crew. ‘What does that mean?’ ‘Pardon,’ was the reply. ‘Pardon, on surrender of your ship and yourselves. If you resist, you can expect no mercy.’ ‘Pardon.’ The word was on every tongue. ‘The King’s pardon!’ Gone were the expressions of fear and anger. Their voices were eager now. Rackham turned to meet the surge of men who flocked towards the poop. Leaning on the rail he looked down on them. ‘What shall it be?’ he shouted. ‘Will you fight or surrender to the King?’ With one voice they answered him, their swarthy faces upturned. ‘Pardon! We’ll take the pardon! Tell him we’ll take the pardon!’ Their shouts rose in a deafening clamour. He raised both hands, and the noise subsided. Even as it was dying away and he was preparing to say ‘So be it,’ a thought occurred to him. He waited until the last murmur had faded. Then he glanced at the shrouds, where the men aloft were already descending, at the main hatchway, where others were crowding up to the deck. Then when every eye was on him, and everyone was silent, he hooked his thumbs into his belt, and looked down at them. ‘You cowardly scum,’ he said, and turned away. He felt that it was a touch of which Governor Woodes Rogers would approve. 4. MAJOR PENNER (#ulink_84fc8ce9-9122-5333-a844-7b12d40feda1) On the following morning, less than twelve hours after their capture, the Kingston pirates were admitted to the Royal pardon. It was an impressive ceremony enacted with considerable solemnity on the broad square of the Fort, and New Providence turned out in force to see it. Along one side of the parade awnings had been erected for the most consequential spectators: the planters, merchants, and gentlefolk and their women who constituted the pick of the island’s society, and before them, in a canopied chair, sat the Governor, magnificent in lilac taffeta and plumed castor, with Master Dickey at his elbow. Marshalled in front of the Governor, with Rackham at their head and a hollow square of garrison infantry about them, stood the filibusters of the Kingston, none the better for a night in the Fort’s wet stone cells. Blinking in the dazzling sunlight they listened as Master Dickey addressed them in the name of the most high and mighty prince, George, of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, King, and catalogued their misdeeds as form demanded. Elsewhere round the parade ground the area was packed with a throng of townsfolk, intent on the show. To Rackham the formalities were interminable. He wanted to sign his name and swear his oath and be away to the Sampson house to make his peace with Kate. But he must wait and listen, while the long paragraphs dragged on, watching the well-to-do standing respectfully attentive beneath their awnings while the common folk shuffled and exchanged whispers with their neighbours. A figure in the ranks of the planters behind the Governor’s chair caught Rackham’s eye, and he recognised Penner, the former Army officer turned pirate whom he had not seen since his last sojourn in Providence two years ago. It was with a shock of surprise that he identified the bluff, red face and corpulent frame in that company of respectable respected, until he realised that Penner, too, must be a pardoned man; was probably by now a citizen of worth and standing in Providence. It was a heartening thought, and he smiled slowly as Penner inclined his head and half-lifted a hand in token of recognition. Master Dickey’s voice claimed his attention again. The formalities over, the name of King George having been suitably glorified, and that of Governor Rogers likewise praised in its degree, the secretary rolled up his document and presented another, which Woodes Rogers again approved, and Dickey proceeded: ‘… whereas these several misguided subjects of our Sovereign Lord, having erred from the ways of duty, yet having repented them of their sins, shall, under this solemn oath and contract, be admitted to said Majesty’s most gracious and Royal pardon, and to them shall be restored said Majesty’s protection, that they may move again in, and be restored to, the proper ways of duty and love to their rightful and most merciful Sovereign.’ Woodes Rogers doffed his castor, an example which every male in the square followed, and prepared to administer the oath. It was a simple document, in contrast to those which had gone before, calling for complete repentance in those who took it, enjoining them to be temperate and truthful, and demanding from them the solemn promise that they would forsake for ever the practice of piracy on the high seas. Finally, it gave assurance that any who broke the oath would be promptly hanged. ‘John Rackham, hold up your right hand,’ commanded Master Dickey. ‘Do you so swear?’ Rackham waited a fraction of a second, savouring the last moment before he should be a free man. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘Benjamin Thorne, do you so swear?’ He was a free man now – as free as Rogers, as Penner, as the King! ‘Isaac Nelson, do you so swear?’ Free. And not only a free man but an honest one – his past forgotten, himself absolved by the most regal authority in the world. One by one the pirates filed forward to sign, or make their marks upon, the heavily sealed document on the Governor’s table. Rackham, in his impatience, scrawled his signature without a glance at the wording of the document. But as he turned from the table he was intercepted by the jovial Major Penner, who had come forward from beneath the awnings. ‘John, lad, welcome home!’ The burly Penner seized his hand. ‘This is the best of fortune. Did ye start to see me in such company, eh?’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the planters. ‘It’s not to be wondered at. I took the pardon two years ago, when Rogers first arrived. And behold me now!’ He laughed resoundingly. ‘A man of substance, as you see. And more than that,’ – his merry grey eyes twinkled as he dug Rackham in the ribs – ‘’tis what yourself shall be, and quickly, or I’m no judge. And how has Fate treated you? No need to tell me. None. I heard of your surrender. Plaguey hard, to give up a fortune, but there – what’s a few broad pieces beside a Royal pardon?’ ‘Major, I—’ Rackham was impatient to be away, but the burly Major had his arm in a bear-like grip. ‘There is someone I must see—’ ‘All in good time, lad,’ Penner reproved him. ‘What? There’s no guarda costas behind ye now. Time is on our side, and your first hour as a pardoned man ye shall spend in my company. For I’ve much to tell you. No buts, lad. I’ll hear none of them. It would be rank mutiny, no less. Will you deny one of His Majesty’s officers?’ He released Rackham and stepped back, grinning like a schoolboy. Rackham was intrigued in spite of himself. ‘A King’s officer?’ ‘No less, John. A commissioned privateer, with His Majesty’s blessing, the Governor’s favour, a stout ship, and a clear conscience.’ He dropped his voice confidentially. ‘And making more than ever I did on the Account, too. It astonishes me. For years folk like you and I stood outside the law, gentlemen of fortune, as we called ourselves, and lucky we are to be still sound and sane. And what now? I take a Royal pardon, ply the same old trade – or nearly – and sleep sound o’ nights. I’ve a house of my own and half a dozen slaves, and I’m fair on the way to buying a plantation. It’s providence, so it is.’ And Major Penner complacently shrugged his massive shoulders and looked about him. The Governor and his aides, followed by the gentry, had retired to the Fort to partake of refreshments, and the square was given over to the throng. Penner and Rackham were surrounded by the jostling crowd who had come to congratulate the redeemed pirates and bear them off to celebrate in the New Providence taverns. The dust they raised was irritating, and Penner could hardly make himself heard above the babble of voices. ‘Come where we don’t have to talk as though we were hailing a main-top,’ he said, and taking Rackham by the arm he led him along the edge of the square and through the inner gate of the Fort. A broad stone stairway led up to the parapet upon which the Governor and his company were being regaled: half-way up there was an embrasure in the wall, and it was into this and on to a narrow stone seat that Penner drew him. ‘Before we go aloft, I’ll tell you what is in my mind,’ he confided, settling himself on the stonework. ‘It’s this way. Since last night, when I heard you were taken, I’ve been on the watch for you, for fear Burgess of Hornigold would clap their hooks into you. I’m privateering, as I said, and good sailormen aren’t too plentiful. I want you, John, as sailing master. In fact, if I had the pick of the coast, I wouldn’t take another. You share in the prizes next to me, and in a couple of voyages you’re a made man.’ He paused. ‘Well, what d’ye say? It’ll be as easy to you as drawing breath. You’re young, you know the life, there’s none of the risks of piracy – well, just a few, say – cruises are short and the money’s in it.’ He waited eagerly for Rackham’s answer. Rackham smiled and shook his head. Counting as he was on marrying an heiress, it was impossible to entertain serious thoughts of the relatively paltry sums that could be picked up privateering. True, he had not a penny to his name, but he had owned little more two years before when he had successfully courted Kate Sampson. Penner saw his smile and groaned. ‘There’s a woman in it,’ he said. ‘I know from the face of ye.’ ‘You’re right, Major,’ said Rackham. ‘A woman it is. And much as I thank you, I’ll want to see more of my wife than I would if I was at sea.’ ‘A wife, d’ye say?’ Penner raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, what’s a wife? I’ve one myself – here, in Providence – and to be sure there’s another in Galway, but does that stand between me and my livelihood? If it’s marriage you’re contemplating, amn’t I showing you the very way to make the money for it?’ Rackham shook his head. ‘I’ve been away too long. I’d have been with her now, likely, but for you, trying to make my peace again. No offence,’ he added. ‘But the sea’s not for me.’ Penner bit his thumb. ‘Well, well, I’ll not deny I’m sorry. You’d have been a godsend to me, Johnny lad. But there, I wish ye success with your lady. And if she should refuse you, be sure I won’t.’ He stood up. ‘And now, let’s be joining the ladies and gentlemen and wetting our tongues. You’ll have a glass to toast you home?’ Rackham glanced uncertainly upwards towards the parapet, and Penner read his thoughts and laughed. ‘You’re afraid ye’re not yet sufficiently pardoned to go abroad among the ladies and gentlemen of Providence society? Man, this pardon isn’t a gradual thing, like taking physic or getting drunk. You’re a free citizen now. Besides, you’re in my company, which is a passport into any society in the Caribbean. Give us your arm.’ ‘But my clothes—’ ‘Will be as meat and drink to the old women and their daughters,’ retorted Penner. ‘They’ll be agog at the wicked Captain Rackham.’ And he led his still unwilling companion up the stairway. As they mounted the last step Rackham had the presence of mind to pull off his headscarf and so go a little way towards rendering his appearance less piratical. Then Penner was leading him towards the groups about the low tables shaded by gargantuan umbrellas in the hands of slave children. It was hardly a scene of elegance, such as Charles Town might have provided, but it could discomfit Rackham, in spite of his friend’s assurances. He saw surprised faces turned towards him, heard the murmur of conversation die away, and wanted to turn and run. But Penner’s hand was clasping his arm as in a vice, and then he saw something which stopped him dead, in spite of the Major’s efforts. Ten yards away, standing beside a table, in conversation with someone whose back was to him, was Jonah Sampson. And seated on the other side of the table, her face white as she looked at him, was Kate. For a moment he stood stock-still, powerless to move or heed the Major’s tugging at his sleeve, and then Penner found himself brushed aside as Rackham swept impetuously past him and grasped the hands of Mistress Sampson, who had half-risen at his approach. She cast one anguished look at her father, but it was lost on Rackham. He stood holding her wrists, oblivious of all around him. The scandalised gasp from the company never sounded for him; if he had heard it he would not have heeded. He was momentarily lost in a world which contained only Kate Sampson and himself. It was the little merchant who broke in upon his idyll. ‘Good God! You, sir! Have you lost your senses? D’you know what you do?’ Outraged, he thrust himself between them. Confronted with that empurpling indignation, Rackham was made aware of the scene he had created. He strove to make amends for what he conceived to be a minor breach of good manners. ‘Master Sampson, your pardon. I had not thought to see you, or your daughter. I was moved, sir, I –.’ He broke off, catching sight of Kate’s face. The contempt and mortification he saw there startled him. That he had made a fool of himself was becoming increasingly plain, but that was not an unforgivable sin, so far as he was aware. The events which had followed their last meeting – his apparent flight with Vane, his seeming renunciation of the promises he had made to her – could hardly dispose the Sampsons to welcome his return, but there must be something more than that to account for the white cold fury in Kate’s look and the apoplectic surgings of her father. Bewildered, he looked from one to the other, then at the faces of the other guests. Not one but was regarding him with disgust and indignation. And then a hand descended on his arm and a voice, cold and hard as a sword blade, spoke in his ear. ‘You make very free with my betrothed,’ it said, and turning he looked into the grim eyes of Woodes Rogers. A blow in the face would have surprised him less. His bewilderment sought confirmation, and the Governor supplied it. ‘My future wife, you dog,’ he said, and for once losing control, he struck Rackham across the mouth. Involuntarily, as he stumbled back, Rackham’s hand dropped to his belt, and in a second the gentlemen about the Governor had caught him and held his wrists. But these things were purely physical, and he was still mentally reeling under the first blow that Rogers had dealt him. Hoarsely, he appealed to Kate. ‘Is this true?’ She did not answer. Her cheeks were burning, and her eyes were turned away, ignoring him. Her father spoke for her, his face contorted with anger. ‘D’ye doubt your ears, you scoundrel?’ He was so incensed that it appeared he would follow the Governor’s example and strike Rackham, but Rogers intervened. He had recovered his composure, though his eyes still gleamed dangerously. ‘That is needless.’ It almost suggested that he was ashamed of his own action. ‘Major Penner, I’ll be obliged if you will remove your companion from this gathering. And I shall have a word to say to you later.’ Dazed and sick, Rackham felt the Major’s hand on his arm, and allowed himself to be led away. There was dead silence on the roof, and the Major made haste to get beyond the reach of the company’s scandalised regard. But he was not speedy enough to be out of earshot when they caught the Governor’s voice attempting, apparently, to resume his conversation with Jonah Sampson. It was the sound of that voice, level and distinct against the silence, that brought Rackham to a halt. For the moment shock and misery had expelled all other thoughts from his mind; only now, as his numbed brain was beginning to work again, did he realise the full meaning of all that had gone before. It came to him with a staggering impact, and brought him wheeling round, rage and blind hatred in his heart. Rogers had cheated him – cheated him coldly and deliberately and beyond all chance of retribution. He had known, two nights ago, when he and Rackham had spoken in the Governor’s study, that Rackham’s only interest in the pardon sprang from his hopes of marrying Kate Sampson. And Rogers had played on that, using Rackham as a pawn to bring him the Kingston’s silver. He had placed the pardon temptingly within Rackham’s reach on conditions which had not existed, since Rogers himself already possessed the only prize that Rackham hoped to win from the game. Oh, he had been admirably fooled, made to dance to the puppet-master’s bidding and now, like a puppet indeed, unable to stir a finger to avenge himself. To proclaim Rogers a cheat and a liar would have been to assure his own destruction: the whole tale would be round New Providence in an hour and those men whom Rackham had betrayed would ensure that he never saw another sun rise. No, the Governor was safe and snug, his pretty plot concluded to his complete satisfaction, and Rackham was left to swallow the bitter draught of frustrated defeat. As he swung round now, his face livid, Major Penner thrust out a hand to stop him. ‘Why, John, are ye mad? Come away, man—’ But Rackham was half-way back from the head of the steps already. The Major saw him stride forward, suddenly stop, hesitate, and then stand, legs apart and arms akimbo, facing the company, who stared at him in disbelief. ‘Woodes Rogers.’ He had mastered the rage inside him sufficiently to guard his tongue against any slip which might betray the secret which lay between him and the Governor, but there was enough venom in his voice to freeze the company where it sat. ‘You played the cheat on me,’ he said slowly. ‘And I do not forget. We understand each other as pirates, you and I.’ And with that he was gone, leaving them thunderstruck. Only Woodes Rogers retained complete composure. While those around him expressed themselves in exclamations and oaths, the Governor shrugged his shoulders. ‘A fantastic fellow,’ he remarked. He was hiding his feelings well. ‘But we trouble ourselves about very little. It is no matter.’ And by exercising the great powers of persuasion and charm at his command, he steered the conversation into less perturbing channels. 5. SWORDS BEHIND THE TAVERN (#ulink_809649da-a095-5267-8d95-559ae045181c) Major Penner, having witnessed the strange scene played on the Fort roof, was quick to appreciate that the reasons which had prevented Rackham from accepting an offer to turn privateer did not now exist, for since the lady whom he had hoped to marry was the Governor’s property, there could no longer be any ties to hold him ashore. It remained, therefore, for Major Penner to bide patiently until his companion’s emotions were less disturbed, and then to repeat his proposal, with every confidence that it would be accepted. He followed Rackham from the Fort, waiting until his fury should have spent itself somewhat, and then, taking him by the arm, guided him to the nearest tavern, the Cinque Ports. Plainly Rackham was in no mood for talk. He sat with Penner in a corner of the tap-room, his face set in ugly lines, drinking what was set before him, and staring down at the table in silence. He was not thinking of Kate, as the Major supposed, but of Rogers. He had been hoodwinked, cheated, and there was no hope of redress. Yet the Governor would be made to pay; by God, he would pay. Half an hour’s steady drinking brought him to that stage where his first fury had subsided. He was still silent, but his eyes were bright, and he had begun to whistle a little through his teeth. This disconcerted the Major, who preferred his drunkards to look less lively, and he decided to broach the subject uppermost in his mind. ‘Ye’ll have wondered, perhaps, why I brought ye here,’ he began. Rackham stopped whistling. ‘I don’t wonder at all. Ye want to remind me that there’s a place for me as quartermaster aboard your sloop. I’ll take it, never fear. So hold your tongue and let me be.’ So much he had decided. Kate was lost to him, and vengeance on Rogers would have to wait. In the meantime he would be best at sea, away from the temptation of putting a knife in the Governor’s stomach some dark night, and away also perhaps from that ill-luck which Providence seemed to hold for him. But that ill-luck was pursuing him even now, and it came in the shape of a tall, rakish Frenchman named La Bouche who, finding the noon heat oppressive, had turned from the street in search of refreshment. Apart from the negro waiters and a few idlers Rackham and Penner had the long common-room of the Cinque Ports to themselves until Captain La Bouche and his friends announced their arrival with much boisterous laughter. This La Bouche was one of those adventurers who, two years before, had sailed out of New Providence in defiance of Rogers and the royal proclamation. He had continued sea-roving for a short season but poor fortune had finally driven him to accept the amnesty. Since then, like Penner, he had turned privateer under Government protection, with moderate success. He hailed Penner effusively and it was evident that he was already a trifle drunk. The Major responded with a curt nod; he had little regard for Captain La Bouche, whom he considered a French fribble. Rackham, looking round and seeing the Frenchman bearing down on them, made no effort to conceal his annoyance; he, too, had no liking for La Bouche, and he was still in the dangerous temper which requires solitude. La Bouche let out a crow of laughter as he recognised the former pirate. ‘Tonerre Dieu!’ he exclaimed. ‘What have we here? M’sieur le Capitan Rackham! O ho!’ He turned to his companions, confiding in a whisper which was plainly audible: ‘Once it was the Quartermaster Rackham, then the Capitan, and now it is – eh, what is it? – oui, it is the ci-devant Captain.’ Laughing again, he came to stand over the table. ‘Oh, my big Jean. An’ you have come the way of the rest of us, hein? Well, well. You are wise, Jean. An’ I bid you welcome – me, La Bouche.’ And in token of that welcome he held out a hand. Rackham considered it, and the soiled lace at its wrist. La Bouche was as raffish as always, gaudily attired in a taffeta suit which set off his spare figure admirably, and with a plumed hat upon his head. But he was not an attractive picture, with his vulpine features flushed with wine, and his closely set eyes twinkling unpleasantly. Ignoring the hand, Rackham turned back to the table. ‘I’m your debtor for that welcome,’ he said briefly, but La Bouche was not abashed. Winking broadly at Penner, who was regarding him with distaste, the Frenchman drew up a chair and sat down. ‘It is un’erstan’able your frien’ has forgot his manners,’ he remarked easily to Penner. ‘So long at sea, chasing nothing, you know – it makes a man sour. But a big drink, a pretty girl’ – he leered salaciously – ‘all these things make a man content, like me.’ He tapped Rackham on the arm. ‘What you say, mon gars – you have a big drink now, with La Bouche, hey? Later we see about the pretty girl.’ He slapped his thigh and shouted with laughter, in which his followers, standing about the table, joined. Rackham looked at him in contempt. ‘When I drink, I drink in company of my choosing,’ he said. ‘You’re not of my choosing. Do I make myself plain?’ La Bouche’s eyes opened in a stare. ‘Hey, what’s this? What way is this to speak to me?’ He turned to Major Penner. ‘Is the big Jean gone more sour than I thought?’ Major Penner, scenting here the beginnings of trouble, made haste to intervene. This La Bouche was something of a bully-duellist, and the last man with whom the Major wanted to see Rackham embroiled. He shook his head in deprecation. ‘The lad’s had a shock, La Bouche, d’ye see? He means no offence, but he’s not entirely himself. It might be best,’ he added meaningly, ‘to leave him alone to me.’ But La Bouche ignored the hint. He assumed an expression of exaggerated commiseration. ‘And is this so? A shock, you say? Poor Jean!’ He winked at the Major. ‘Perhaps – a lady?’ Taking the Major’s silence for an affirmative, La Bouche pushed his query further, making no effort to conceal his mockery. ‘Perhaps – a Governor’s lady?’ Without warning, before the Major could move, Rackham struck the Frenchman across the mouth. Caught off balance, his chair on two legs, La Bouche went pitching over backwards to sprawl on the floor. With a curse, Penner bounded from his seat with a speed surprising in so corpulent a man, and flung his arms round Rackham to prevent him throwing himself at the Frenchman as he lay caught in the ruins of his chair. ‘John, ye blind fool! What have ye done?’ He exerted all his strength to keep the other from breaking from his grasp. ‘Be still man, in God’s name!’ ‘What have I done?’ Rackham was glaring over the Major’s shoulder at La Bouche, who was making shift to rise with what dignity he could. ‘What have I done? Nothing to what I’ve yet to do, by God! D’ye think I’ll be rallied by that French scum?’ ‘French scum? So?’ La Bouche was on his feet now, a very different man from the easy, jesting scoundrel of a moment ago. His face was pale and his mouth tightly set. His eyes gleamed balefully. ‘I think this is a little too much. But a little. I have been struck and then insult’. I think, now, we settle this matter.’ ‘What the hell d’ye mean?’ roared Penner in con-sternation. ‘What d’ye suppose he means?’ growled Rackham. ‘The pimp wants to fight. Well, I’m ready whenever he is.’ Major Penner thrust himself between them in an attempt to compose matters. ‘Why, this is folly, John! This … this cannot take place. What match are you for this bully-swordsman?’ In sudden rage he swung round on La Bouche. ‘Ye dirty French rogue! If ye’d kept sober enough to be able to hold your dirty tongue in its place this need never have happened. La Bouche by name and La Bouche by nature! Well, if it’s blood ye want ye shall have it – but it’s myself will be acting as chirurgeon.’ La Bouche waved him aside. ‘No, no, my so gallant Major. My concern is with your friend, not with you. Afterwards, if you will. When I have disposed of this gross piece of English beef. But not yet.’ He addressed himself to Rackham. ‘Where shall I kill you? We can fight here, if you will.’ Rackham shrugged. ‘Wherever ye please.’ La Bouche nodded. He was very much master of himself again. ‘Then there is a convenient place behind the house. If you will follow me.’ With exaggerated courtesy he led the way. Seeing that further protest must be futile, Penner attended Rackham in gloomy silence to the waste ground behind the Cinque Ports. He could see but one end to this, and that end would find him without a quartermaster. It was futile to curse the chance that had brought this quarrelsome, swaggering Frenchman to the inn at a moment when Rackham’s mood was unusually truculent: the damage was done and Major Penner glumly prepared for the worst. Rackham, at least, shared none of the soldier’s regrets. Here was an outlet for the smouldering rage which had been growing inside him, and La Bouche was a fit object on which to vent it. Nor did he give a second’s thought to the possible fatal consequences to himself. Word of what was forward spread quickly, and as the two principals were taking their ground, a small crowd began to gather behind the tavern. Loafers, seamen and passers-by hurried to the scene – none so common in Providence these days – and made room for themselves about the small clearing. Black, white and brown, they chatted cheerfully as though they were at a play. Others watched from the windows of the Cinque Ports, and a few squatted on the gently sloping roof. The Frenchman, stripped down to his shirt and breeches, and with his long hair clubbed back in a kerchief, was jovial and confident as he stepped forward into the open space of the duelling-ground; he laughed and flung jests to his supporters in the crowd, and swished his rapier to and fro in the air to loosen his muscles, an extravagant display which brought sycophantic murmurs of approval from his adherents. Tall, supple, and active as a cat, La Bouche was confident of the issue. Rackham, assisted by the Major, was wrapping a long sash round and round his left forearm to serve him as a shield. This done, he accepted the Major’s rapier, and with it the hurried words of advice which his second bestowed on him. ‘Be easy, now, Jack,’ said the Major for perhaps the twentieth time that day. ‘Let him spend his force showing off to his jackals, and watch for a chance.’ It was lame enough counsel, but it reminded Rackham, whose intent had been to allow his temper to guide his sword hand, that he had best go cautiously to work. He nodded, rubbed dirt on his sword hand, and strode forward to face his antagonist. Le Bouche saluted and slid forward, sinuous as a snake, to the attack. The slim, glittering blades clashed together, La Bouche feinted at his opponent’s throat, and as Rackham’s guard came up, the Frenchman extended himself in a quick lunge. To his surprise, it was parried neatly with the forte of the blade, and La Bouche slipped back out of danger before the Englishman had time to riposte. But that quick parry had not been lost on Major Penner. It had been speedy – very speedy for a man of Rackham’s build, and the Major took heart. He reminded himself that his principal was an experienced man of his hands, a seasoned practitioner of hand-to-hand fighting. Perhaps he had been wrong to despair. La Bouche, more cautiously now, came again to the attack, whirling his point in a circle, feeling his opponent out and watching for an opening. Rackham, circling with him, allowed the Frenchman to force the pace, watching his eyes and keeping his point level with the other’s waist. Their feet scuffing quickly on the hard earth, they fenced warily, and gradually the smile returned to La Bouche’s lips. He leaped to the attack, his foot stamping, made a double feint, to the stomach and the throat, and with his enemy’s blade wavering in wide parade, lunged to take him in the arm. With a despairing swing, like a butcher with a cleaver, Rackham diverted the Frenchman’s point, but as La Bouche followed the line of his lunge the bowls of the swords clashed together, and a sudden wrench of La Bouche’s wrist sent the Englishman’s sword clattering to the ground a dozen paces away. An involuntary yell from the crowd greeted that sudden disarming; to be followed almost instantly by silence as La Bouche, his evil face agrin, turned to dispose of his weaponless antagonist. Rackham, his chest heaving with exertion, sweat pouring down his face, watched as the Frenchman, his point raised, advanced to dispatch him. There was no escape; if he turned to run La Bouche’s sword would pierce his back in the same moment; if he stayed and faced him death would come with equal certainty. La Bouche made a sudden thrust at his face, and instinctively Rackham leaped back, but it was only a feint. La Bouche stepped back, lowering his point, and mocked him. ‘Will you not come for your sword, big Jean? See, it is here.’ And the ruffian indicated the fallen rapier at his feet. A woman’s voice, husky and vibrant, spoke from the crowd at Rackham’s back. ‘Make an end, Pierre. It’s over warm for such excitement.’ And a ripple of laughter greeted her words. But the callous mockery of that voice was La Bouche’s undoing, for it transformed Rackham’s helplessness into violent anger. He tensed for a spring, and in the same moment La Bouche struck. His point ripped out, but even as it did so the Englishman pivoted on his heel and the blade, tearing through his shirt, ploughed a deep furrow along his ribs and driven on by the force of La Bouche’s thrust, spent itself on air. La Bouche stumbled, and was in the act of recovering when Rackham’s fist crashed against his temple and sent him headlong. A great shout went up from the spectators, and Rackham, bounding forward, snatched up his sword. La Bouche was on his feet in an instant to meet the Englishman’s assault: one mighty back-hand sweep he parried, but he was rattled, and as Rackham’s arm went up for another stroke La Bouche lost his head and lunged wildly at his opponent’s unguarded front. His point never went home. Rackham swept the blade aside with his left hand, leaving the Frenchman extended and helpless, and before La Bouche could even attempt a recovery Rackham, now inside his guard, had run him through the body. La Bouche’s rapier fell from his hand, his mouth opened horribly, and as the sword was withdrawn he collapsed, coughing and retching. For a few seconds Rackham stood looking down at him, then he turned on his heel and walked back to Major Penner. There was a moment’s dead silence, and then the voice of the crowd broke out in noisy confusion. Penner, having shaken Rackham’s hand and mastered his delight, went over to join the little group surrounding the fallen Frenchman. La Bouche’s face was deadly grey but there was no blood at his lips, and a brief examination enabled the Major to ascertain that the wound was not mortal. ‘The more’s the pity,’ he observed, as he rose from the Frenchman’s side. ‘He’s a dirty hound who would have been better on the road to hell this minute.’ ‘You dare to mock the dying?’ La Bouche’s lieutenant, a squat, barrel-chested ruffian, rounded on the Major. ‘I wish I had the opportunity,’ sighed Penner. ‘But he’s far from dying. It’s a high thrust in the chest’ – he indicated the crimson gash of the wound half-hidden by the thick black hair on La Bouche’s breast – ‘and no one ever died of one of those. Not,’ he added hopefully, ‘unless ye intend to let him bleed to death.’ Grumbling and cursing, they nevertheless made shift to staunch their captain’s bleeding while the Major rejoined Rackham who sat, pale and breathing heavily, on a bench against the tavern wall. ‘You’re not unscratched yourself,’ said Penner, kneeling at his principal’s side and making examination of the bloody groove which La Bouche’s rapier had cut in his ribs. ‘Another inch to the left there and it’s yourself would be lying on the sand yonder. And, blast me, what ails your hand?’ He swore in disgust at the sight of the crimson stain spreading through the sash which the pirate had swathed on his forearm. ‘The graceful art of sword-play! You’ll have taken this when you beat his blade aside with your hand. And not the wit to realise that in so turning a point you must touch the blade for an instant only, for fear it has a cutting edge.’ ‘Talk less and bind it for me,’ said Rackham shortly. He lay back, his black head resting against the plaster of the wall, his face grimed with sand and sweat. Reaction had set in, and he was finding it an effort to talk. The Major, having stripped away the bloody sash and sponged the wound, bound a linen cloth tightly about it, remonstrating as he did so, like a mother with an injured child. ‘It’s thankful we should be you’ve taken no worse hurt. I was a fool to have let matters go so far. When he disarmed you that time – my God!’ The Major shuddered. ‘I thought ye were done, and so you would have been, but that ye have the fiend’s own luck and a surprising nimbleness on your feet. But, there now, all’s well that ends well, as the poet says.’ At that moment they were interrupted by a woman’s voice calling them from the roadway, and at the sound of it Rackham spun round so violently that he nearly upset the Major. For it was the voice which had urged La Bouche to run him through when he stood disarmed; the voice which had made him forget his fear in a mad surge of fury, and the recollection of its mockery reawoke his anger against the speaker. ‘Major Penner! A moment, Major, if you please.’ The Major, turning with Rackham, swept off his hat and made a clumsy bow towards a carriage which stood at the roadside. He muttered an excuse to Rackham and lumbered towards it. 6. ANNE BONNEY (#ulink_6006d33c-0d55-5073-b21b-901f0a852773) The woman in the carriage was tall, and quite the most vivid-looking creature Rackham had ever seen. Her hair, beneath a broad-brimmed bonnet, was glossy dark red, and hung to shoulders which in spite of the heat were covered only by a flimsy muslin scarf. Her high-waisted green gown was cut very low on her magnificent bosom, which was bare of ornament; her face was long, with a prominent nose and chin, her brows heavy and dark, and her lips, which were heavily painted, were broad and full, with an odd quirk at the corners that gave her an expression at once wanton and cynical. Massive earrings touched her shoulders, there was a tight choker of black silk round her neck, and the bare forearm which lay along the edge of the carriage was heavily bangled and be-ringed. ‘In God’s name, Penner, what was the meaning of that moon madness?’ She waved a jewelled hand in Rackham’s direction. ‘D’ye value the hide of your friend so cheap that you’ll offer him as meat for a bully-swordsman’s chopping?’ ‘Why, ma’am, I—’ Penner shuffled and stammered. ‘I was opposed to it, d’ye see – from the outset, but—’ ‘If that was your opposition, God save us from your encouragement,’ observed the woman languidly. She turned her heavy-lidded eyes on Rackham. ‘For one who has so narrowly cheated the chaplain your champion is mighty glum,’ she observed. ‘He has a name, I suppose?’ ‘Hah, yes,’ said Penner. ‘My manners are all to pieces, I think. Permit me, ma’am, to present my friend and brother officer, Captain Rackham – Captain John Rackham.’ He made a vague gesture of introduction. ‘John – er, Captain, – Mistress Bonney.’ Rackham, still resentful of this red-haired Amazon, gave a nod which was the merest apology for a bow. Covered with dust and sweat, he was conscious of the bedraggled figure he must present, and his indignation was not sufficient to make him forget his vanity. But Mistress Bonney had no thought for his disarray. Her eyes widened at the mention of his name. ‘The pirate captain? He that fired on the Governor’s fleet and took a fortune in silver from the Spaniards?’ ‘The same,’ said Major Penner, with the proud air of a master exhibiting a prize pupil. ‘And now turned privateer with me.’ Mistress Bonney’s grey eyes beneath those heavy black brows considered Rackham appreciatively. Her broad lips parted in a smile. ‘Faith, it’s an honour to meet so distinguished a captain. I had heard you took the pardon this morning. Doubtless you mean to lead a peaceful life ashore.’ She was laughing at him, and he flushed angrily. ‘You hear a deal, madam. But it’s not all gospel. If they tell you I fired on the King’s ships they lie: it was no work of mine but that of a half-drunk fool. Nor did I take any silver from the Spanish. That, too, was another’s work.’ ‘Another half-drunk fool?’ she asked, smiling. ‘A cold sober traitor,’ he answered. She pursed her lips, her eyes mocking him. ‘You keep sound company. And now you are in league with the bold Major. Well, he’s neither fool nor traitor, but for the rest he’s both drunk and sober, as the mood takes him. Am I right, Major?’ ‘As always, ma’am,’ replied the Major gallantly. ‘And never more drunk than in the presence of beauty.’ ‘A compliment, by God! Put it in verse, Major, and sing it beneath a window.’ She turned back to Rackham. ‘You, sir, who are a captain, and a pirate, and what not: where did you learn to use a sword so pitifully?’ ‘Pitifully?’ Rackham stared, then laughed. ‘Ask La Bouche if my sword-play was pitiful.’ ‘I’ve no need to ask. I’ve eyes in my head. You’re a very novice, man. La Bouche might have cut you to shreds.’ ‘But he didn’t, ma’am, as ye’ll have observed,’ put in the Major hastily, as he saw Rackham’s brow growing dark. ‘Captain Rackham is not one of your foining rascals; a quick cut and a strong thrust is his way – and very effective, too.’ ‘It may be. But he can thank God and his good luck that he has a whole skin still,’ said Mistress Bonney. ‘And where do you take him now?’ ‘To my house,’ said the Major. ‘He has a scratch or two that will be the better of bathing and sleep.’ ‘And what do you know of tending his scratches?’ she asked scornfully. Her lazy glance lingered again on Rackham. ‘You’d best let me see to him. Climb into the coach, both of you, and we’ll take him where he won’t be mishandled by some coal-heaver who calls himself a physician. For that’s the best he’d have from you, Penner.’ The Major looked uneasily at Rackham. ‘If you think it best—’ he began. Mistress Bonney waved him aside impatiently. ‘Be silent, man. It’s for Captain Rackham here to judge.’ Rackham met her bold stare and wondered. His first instinct was to tell this fantastic woman, with her harlot’s face and body and mannish tongue, to mind her own business and be gone. She was too bold; too forthright. He could have excused her that if she had been a tavern wench, but she was not. There were the signs of wealth about her, and her voice, for all its oaths and masculinity, was not uneducated. These things, taken with her heavy paint and challenging eyes, made her a queer paradox of a woman; instinct warned him that she was dangerous. But his hand and side were stinging most damnably, and his head throbbed. And so he made the decision which was to change the course of his life, with two words. ‘Thank you.’ He turned to the Major. ‘If Mistress Bonney has anything that will take the ache from these cuts, I’d be a fool to refuse.’ The Major nodded solemnly. He seemed vaguely unwilling, but Rackham was too tired to take notice of him. They drove up the slight incline through the town, and then the coach wheeled to take the eastern coast road. Lulled by the gentle rocking of the vehicle, Rackham leaned back and allowed his tired body to relax. Soon they were passing through the cane-fields, with their gangs of black slaves working in the blazing sun. Somewhere one of them was chanting in a deep, strong voice, and Rackham closed his eyes and dozed to that slow, haunting melody. The stopping of the coach shook him out of his half-sleep. They were through the cane-fields now, and were halted on a stretch of road which ran through a quiet palm-grove. Major Penner had climbed out of the carriage, and looking about for explanation Rackham noticed a small drive winding between the palms to a white, green-shuttered house half-hidden among the trees. Penner was looking uneasy and fidgeting with his hat; he was, apparently, bidding good-bye to Mistress Bonney. Rackham could make nothing of this. ‘Is this your house?’ he asked her. ‘Not yet. I recollected I had a call to make on Mistress Roberts – hers is the house yonder – and Major Penner has gallantly offered to carry a message for me. It is vastly obliging of him. I don’t doubt that Fletcher Roberts will bid him to dinner.’ Her explanation was sounding oddly like a series of instructions; the Major could hardly have looked less gallant or obliging. ‘I shall look for you again, Major,’ she continued, and although she favoured him with her most gracious smile there was finality in her tone. ‘In the meantime have no fear for your charge.’ And before Rackham could speak the carriage was rolling off and Penner was left standing by the roadside. Rackham half-turned in his seat to call the driver to halt, but the sudden movement brought a fiery wrench to the wound in his side, and he sank back, gasping with pain. Mistress Bonney, seeing him go suddenly pale, started forward in her seat, only to relax as he lifted his head angrily. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/george-fraser/captain-in-calico/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.