Captain in Calico

‘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—’