Captain in Calico

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.’

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