Captain in Calico

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.