Captain in Calico (19 page)

Within seconds the cry was being taken up ashore where many of the pirates were already taking to the woods. Some, bolder or more intelligent than their companions, tried to run out one of the boats to reach the
Kingston
, but they were careless in their haste and the boat foundered in the surf only a few yards from the beach.

From the poop of the
Kingston
Bull stared incredulously at the man-of-war with the red, white and blue fluttering at her main-truck. It seemed to him impossible that such a thing could be, and it was several seconds before complete realisation came home to him. He glared wildly round as Rackham came bounding up the poop ladder to his side.

‘It's the King's colours!' he roared. ‘We's took – trapped!' He loosed a volley of curses and shook his fist at the oncoming ship. Rackham cut him abruptly short. ‘Ye can save your breath for the gibbet where you'll need it shortly,' he snapped,
and then he delivered the stinging reproach that was boiling up in him.

‘No King's ships, eh? A safe coast and a jolly cruise and a bellyful of rum and dollars? No danger at all. “Them that like can stay and watch for it,” you said. Well, by God, you're watching now!'

Bull was too distracted for resentment. There was something very near to terror in his eyes as he turned in desperation to Rackham. ‘What's to be done?' he croaked, and Rackham answered him with a savage laugh.

‘You ask me what's to be done? You dare? Am I the captain? No, no, Davie, not I. Ye've peacocked it on this ship long enough, my lad, and thrust your fool head in a noose in spite of all my warnings. Pull it out as best ye can.'

‘Blast you!' shouted Bull. ‘It's your neck as well as mine! God's teeth, we'll be under her guns while you stand mocking!' He cast another frenzied look towards the man-of-war and his tone changed abruptly. It became almost pleading.

‘Calico, man, you're a sailing-master; could we not slip by, mebbe? Look, man, she's none so nimble herself, wi' all that weight! We might be away before she's gone about!' He seized the quartermaster's arm, but Rackham shook him off and pointed to the advancing ship.

‘There's two decks of guns there to say why you can't slip past her,' he said. ‘Even if you could she'd overhaul us inside a couple of miles with our keel foul as it is.'

‘Hell! We can't wait here doin' nowt!' shouted Bull. ‘Carty! Cut yon bloody cable afore she runs us down. Malloy!' He lurched to the rail and stilled the panic of the crew by sheer lung-power. ‘Get 'em into the shrouds! Tacks an' braces! Bustle damn you, or we're done!'

His face was terrible to see as he turned on Rackham. ‘We'll clear this bay or feel its bottom before this hour's out!'

Rackham judged the distance between the
Kingston
and the great red vessel creeping over the water under shortened sail. There might just be time to get the
Kingston
under way before they found themselves at the mercy of the warship's guns, but even so those guns must surely blow them out of the water before they could hope to slip past towards the open sea. Still, there was a chance – a tiny, ridiculously slender chance – that the
Kingston
would escape without injury from the other's broadside and at the same time deal her a crippling blow. A lucky shot to a magazine or the rudder chains – little ships had beaten big ones before now.

Bull strode up and down, roaring like a madman, while the crew of the
Kingston
worked with the energy of despair. With the gentle land breeze in her favour she was turned in a matter of minutes from a floating, near inanimate hulk into a living ship; a laboured, unhandy ship, but able to give battle even so.

As she came round a faint wail came over the water from the pirates abandoned ashore. To them, with the cliffs at their backs, and beyond that a hostile land, the deck of the
Kingston
was preferable, even though it must soon be swept with shot and running with blood.

Smoke sprouted from a bow gun aboard the King's ship, followed almost instantly by the thud of the report, and a round-shot sent a spout of water flying up a hundred yards beyond the
Kingston
's bows – the signal to heave to. Bull yelled a curse and shook his fist.

‘Burn your powder, you bastards!' he shouted. ‘We'll drown afore we swing!' Brave at the best of times, he was exhibiting
now the courage of the trapped animal, and some of it spread to his crew. There was a ragged cheer as the
Kingston
glided slowly forward, her sails filling, Rackham holding her head for the centre of the entrance to the bay.

The distance between the two ships began to close rapidly. Down in the waist Carty was frantically mustering his gun crews: if he was lucky he might be able to get in three shots, Rackham calculated. Three shots to balance the ponderous weight of metal that would sweep the
Kingston
's decks, tearing her hull and shattering her upper works, turning her from a ship into a riddled, drifting mass of timber with the dead strewn on her deck.

‘Stand by!' It was Bull bawling beside him, and Rackham and the pirate who was with him at the wheel braced themselves. There was an explosion from the bows of the King's ship and a shot rushed overhead and ripped through the mainsail. Another followed, and there was a jarring crash of splintering timbers and a scream from the waist.

‘Now!' snapped Rackham, and the two men flung their combined weight on the wheel. The
Kingston
shuddered and came round, and as she did so there was the triple crash of gunfire and three sickening thuds against her hull, one after another like knocks on a door. Smoke welled up from the waist as Carty's guns gave answer – ‘Too soon! Too soon!' a voice was shouting, and Rackham recognised it for that of Bull, stamping beside him.

He saw the red ship looming up on their larboard bow, and groaned aloud as the
Kingston
answered sluggishly to the wheel. There was nothing he could do as their opponent veered slowly round, presenting her huge flank with its double tier of black shining muzzles; he watched them with a kind
of dull fascination, heedless of the yells and howls from the waist, Bull's storming beside him, or the acrid bite of the powder smoke in his eyes. This was the end.

The side of the King's ship seemd to burst into flame, and the
Kingston
staggered and lurched as the broadside smashed into her. Rackham was hurled from his feet and thrown against the rail, where he lay, half-stunned. Someone fell on him, and a second later he felt the hot stickiness of blood on his face. He struggled up, throwing the body aside, and saw it was the man who had held the wheel with him, but now he was dead, with his head battered to pulp. Rackham clung to the rail as another salvo boomed out with deafening violence and the
Kingston
heeled over again. She half-righted herself, drifting with her deck canting beneath his feet as he staggered blindly towards the ladder and looked down into the shambles of the waist.

It was as though a gigantic scythe had been swept over the
Kingston
's deck. The foremast, struck by a round-shot, had come crashing down and hung outwards over the starboard side, caught in the mesh of its own gear. There were two great gaps in the port-side rail and the deck planking was ploughed and scarred with shot. One of the port guns had broken loose from its tackles and careered across the deck, smashing half-way through the opposite bulwark where it hung precariously over the water. There were men on the deck, too, some of them stirring or crawling, and others who lay grotesquely still. Several lay huddled round one of the guns, and he saw a stream of blood begin to trickle down across the tilting deck.

Bull was roaring behind him on the poop, and as though awakened by that stentorian voice the
Kingston
began to come to life again. Carty was on his feet in the waist, and perhaps
half a dozen others. As Bull bellowed his commands they started forward obediently, and then the
Kingston
lurched again. She was beginning to go down by the head, and the chorus of shrieks grew louder.

‘Aft!' roared Bull. He was bleeding freely from a gash in his cheek, and there was more blood on the leg of his breeches, but he moved with the assurance of a whole man. He stood at the opposite ladder to Rackham, his broadsword naked in his hand, his face purple with the effort of making himself heard above the din.

The King's ship was going about only a cable's length away on their port quarter. Rackham, ironically enough, had accomplished his object: the
Kingston
now had an unhindered passage to the entrance of the bay, but she lay yawing and helpless, her hull a riddled hulk that must founder in half an hour or less.

Men were scrambling up the ladder, tearing at each other to reach the temporary security of the poop, heedless of the screams of the wounded abandoned in the waist. Rackham saw a red head on the deck below where Anne Bonney was picking her way carefully through the tangle of gear and timber, stepping gracefully as ever even in the carnage that surrounded her. Beyond her a man was hobbling across the deck on one foot, catching at any handhold he could reach, and Rackham recognised Ben, the leg of his breeches sodden with blood and his foot trailing behind him. He stumbled and fell, and Rackham started down the ladder to his assistance. As he reached the deck he came face to face with Anne Bonney.

Her face was deathly white and there was a look of terror in her eyes. He put out a hand to steady her, but she brushed him aside.

‘Alan,' she asked, her voice trembling. ‘Have you seen Alan?'

It took him a moment to realise that she meant Kinsman. He shook his head and she put up her hand to her mouth to check a sudden uncontrollable sob.

‘Oh God,' she muttered. ‘Where is he? He was with me by the gun, and then … then they fired on us and there was blood everywhere … and … and he was gone! He was gone!' Her voice rose in a shriek, and she covered her face with her hands and half-collapsed on Rackham's shoulder. He steadied her and guided her feet to the ladder.

‘Up with you while there's still time,' he said. ‘If he's alive he's up yonder with the others.' He released her and started out over the tilted deck to where Ben was trying to free his wounded leg from a tangle of cordage. Slipping and stumbling Rackham reached his side and knelt down, pulling out his knife to slash through the lines that were tangling his comrade's foot.

Ben looked up at him, his pain-drawn face breaking into a grin.

‘Good for you, cap'n,' he said huskily. ‘I reckoned I was gone wi' this game pin o' mine.'

Rackham cut away the cords and was slipping his arm round Ben's shoulders to help him rise when the uproar from the poop was redoubled. The King's ship was drawing alongside again.

Rackham looked aft to see the pirates who only a moment since had been fighting their way up the ladders coming down them again in headlong flight. Others had thrown themselves down behind the shelter of the bulwarks or any other cover they could find.

‘Jesus, they ain't goin' to hammer us again, surely?' muttered Ben, his eyes wide as he watched the approach of the King's ship.

There was a crash of musketry from the poop, and Rackham saw Bull with a smoking piece in his hand. Before the sound of the shot had died away it was answered by the deep blast of a gun. A storm of langrel swept across the poop, knocking splinters from the rail and cutting almost in two a pirate at the ladder head, but by some miracle Bull was untouched. He hurled away his musket and snatched up his sword, yelling defiance at the oncoming ship.

There were armed men at her rail, and perched above them in the shrouds were musketmen who fired down into the
Kingston
as the distance narrowed between the two ships. A grappling iron soared over the water, lodging behind the
Kingston
's rail; then came a second and a third. Bull leaped down the ladder and slashed one of them free, but two more followed, and the half-sinking
Kingston
was hauled towards the side of her great red opponent.

The
Kingston
was in no case to repel the boarders who dropped to her deck. Apart from Bull there was hardly a man aboard with any thought of resistance; they were a disordered rabble with no thought but to escape the murderous fire poured on them from the musketeers aloft, and the steel in the hands of the boarding party.

As the first navy men came over the rail Bull leaped to the attack, burying his broadsword in the body of a seaman even as the man's feet touched the deck. Before he could deliver another out he was borne back by the weight of numbers and stretched weaponless on the deck.

A voice aboard the King's ship shouted an order, and another volley of fire was poured over the heads of the boarding party at those survivors of the
Kingston
who were scurrying for safety. Another man went down, and before the volley could be repeated a voice screamed out above the noise.

‘Quarter!'

The command to hold fire was shouted from the rail of the King's ship, and a young officer with the boarding party stepped forward ahead of his men, his drawn rapier in one hand and a pistol in the other. He looked round him about the ravaged deck and shouted, ‘Do you surrender?'

Rackham nodded wearily and somewhere behind him a hysterical voice answered the officer. ‘Aye, aye. Christ, aye! No more, no more!' It trailed off into a sob. It might have been the voice of the
Kingston
, beaten and broken. The young officer sheathed his sword and ordered his men forward into the doomed ship.

Rackham and Ben were dragged to their feet and held each between two burly sailors, and Rackham looked about him to see who else had survived. There was Bull, senseless on the deck, but still alive, and Carty with a broken arm that hung limply in its blood-sodden sleeve. Dobbins, the ship's boy, was weeping as he was kicked to his feet, and herded together at the stump of the foremast were Earl and Bourne, two of the jail-birds, with Malloy, crumpled up between them, his grey hair streaked with blood.