Captain in Calico (21 page)

‘The one matter in which I would have the gentlemen of the jury informed beyond all possible doubt is this, sir,' continued Mr Mitchum. ‘You can say, can you not, that each one of the accused did knowingly and willingly act in the seizure of His Majesty's ship
Star
, and that none sought to hinder or impede that crime?'

‘That is so, sir.'

‘In effect, you know every one of them to be pirates?'

‘I do.'

Mr Mitchum looked significantly at the jury. ‘And can you think – I ask you as one who, I am sure, will wish above all to see justice done – can you think that there exists in the case of any of these accused, extenuating circumstances which might be held to excuse their offences in any way whatsoever?'

Kinsman appeared to hesitate. He looked at the dock and for a moment his eye met Rackham's. In that moment Rackham realised that it lay in Kinsman's power possibly to
save Anne Bonney from the gallows. If he gave a full recital of the details surrounding the Penner affair and told of the assistance, unwitting though it had been, which she had given him, it was just possible that the jury might recommend her to mercy. Surely Kinsman would be bound to do that much at least; he who had been her lover.

Kinsman looked back to Mr Mitchum. ‘I know of none, sir.'

So Anne Bonney was doomed with the rest of them. She could hang for all Kinsman cared. And yet perhaps there was something that could be done even now.

As the prosecutor sat down and the judge invited the prisoners to question the witness, Rackham held up his hand.

‘Did you not,' he asked Kinsman, ‘receive some help from one of the prisoners at any time?'

Kinsman's eyes narrowed slightly. ‘None that I recall.'

‘Did no one assist you in the murder of Major Penner, then?' asked Rackham.

There was a sudden gasp of astonishment from the public benches, and Mr Mitchum swung round angrily to stare indignantly at this presumptuous questioner. He was preparing to leap to the defence of his witness, but his witness was already defending himself in the same cool, precise voice with which he had given his evidence.

He turned to the jury. ‘I did not think it needful to burden the court with details,' he said quietly. ‘It is true that I fought with Major Penner, who has already been mentioned to you as commanding the sloop, and that I killed him. True also that I provoked the quarrel on purpose to kill him. But that I murdered him I most emphatically deny. I regarded him as outlawed, and executed him because he was a clever, capable rogue who would certainly have undone my plans had he
been allowed to live. And that I was given assistance by anyone knowing me to be in the King's service I also deny.'

‘D'ye say she didn't abet you to put the quarrel on Penner?' demanded Rackham, pointing to Anne Bonney. He realised he might be making her case worse instead of better, but it was too late to stop now.

Kinsman considered the question. ‘That she helped me I do not deny. But that she knew me for what I was – an agent of His Majesty – is not true. She aided me for her own ends.'

‘Because she was your lover?'

‘Exactly,' said Kinsman, his face as emotionless as ever.

Here was more sensation than the spectators had ever dared to hope for. It took repeated commands by the sergeant-at-arms to still the chatter and when they were quiet at last the judge put a question to Kinsman.

‘You slew the pirate Penner because you feared his ability to sway the other rascals? You believe they might have avoided ultimate capture had he remained to command them?'

‘Yes, my lord. Although he did not command in fact he had influence enough with them.'

His lordship nodded and up bounced Mr Mitchum to assure the jury that no blame could be attached to Captain Kinsman for the death of Major Penner, since he had merely forestalled the hangman, as the prosecution would show. Furthermore, it was evident from the witness's testimony that the fact that the woman Bonney had been instrumental in bringing about Major Penner's death could not be argued in her defence, since she had acted without intent to assist the Crown. Rather, Mr Mitchum submitted, it showed the type of woman she
was – one who would not scruple to send a man to his death at her lover's prompting.

Approval showed on the faces of the jury as Mr Mitchum, with little regard for the rules of procedure, drew a brief and unsavoury picture of the female accused's morals and behaviour. Thereafter he summoned his next witness, Captain Bankier, and Rackham saw again the dull, heavy features which he had seen first on the deck of the
Star
– God, it seemed an eternity ago.

If the spectators hoped for sensational details from this witness, they were disappointed. Bankier gave his evidence without conviction, returning the briefest possible replies to the prosecution's questions and occasionally quoting in a monotonous drone from a sheaf of notes. His testimony served the prosecution's turn of damning Penner as the leader of the boarders, and of blackening the case against Rackham and Bull, but he was not an enthusiastic witness and to the onlookers he was merely tiresome.

The last prosecution witness was an officer from the King's ship which had sunk the
Kingston.
His evidence was short, consisting of an affirmation that the pirates had shown resistance and had attempted to escape. Mr Mitchum dismissed him without comment, and the accused were then invited to speak or to call what witnesses there might be to their defence. Since they had been given no opportunity to summon such witnesses it was an empty invitation, but at least they had the opportunity to speak for themselves and several were ready to avail themselves of it.

Rackham was not among them. He knew there was nothing he could say that would make his position any better; his plea of not guilty had been a formality and he was not going
into the witness box to be baited by Mr Mitchum for the sport of the gallery.

With contempt he watched his companions one after another take the oath and submit themselves to the prosecutor's practised inquisition. Skilfully and mercilessly he brushed aside their various defences and exposed their guilt. For the entertainment of the public he played with the prisoners, weaving them round with a web of words or leading them on with series of apparently harmless questions until they were entrapped by their own answers. For Mr Mitchum it was easy sport; not a soul in the court-room but knew that these men were condemned already, and could not help but reveal themselves guilty wherever the prosecutor's cross-examination touched. It was all so simple that a child could have deputised for Mr Mitchum without jeopardising the Crown case, and indeed his own conduct verged occasionally on the juvenile.

There was his examination of the simpleton Malloy, which provoked much amusement. Malloy had conceived the amazing plea that he had been forced to the business by Rackham and Bull, who, he alleged, had threatened him in New Providence with instant death if he did not fall in with their schemes.

Asked if he had first been threatened before the attack on Bonney's house Malloy, after some thought, supposed that it was earlier that evening.

‘How did they threaten you?' was Mr Mitchum's solemn inquiry.

Malloy frowned. ‘Well, Johnny said ‘e would pistol me if I didn't do as I was bid, an' Davie swore to knife me. I knew they was ready for anythin', ‘cos they're desperate lads both.'

‘Did they threaten you with a pistol, then?'

‘Oh yes, yer honour.'

‘They held it to your head, perhaps?' Mr Mitchum was almost genial.

‘‘Deed they did, sir. Calico claps it to me ‘ead an' “Do as I tell ye, ye lousy little rat, or I'll burn yer brains,” says ‘e. Powerful fierce, ‘e was', Malloy added eagerly.

Mr Mitchum shook his head in mock dismay. ‘And doubtless he held it to your head all evening, while you were breaking into Master Bonney's house and looting and burning it and taking the brig
Kingston
as well. Was he not fatigued by it?'

The ripple of laughter in the gallery rather than the question told Malloy he was being mocked. He saw the grins on the faces of the jury and the ponderous scorn of his questioner and looked about him helplessly. He was a pathetic figure, with his wispy white hair and bony manacled hands twisting together as he turned his head this way and that like a bewildered animal, and it was difficult to imagine him as the bloody pirate Mr Mitchum had painted him.

‘I dunno, sir,' he said at last, thereby causing a fresh outburst of merriment.

Rackham found it a revolting spectacle. He bore no resentment to Malloy for the defence he had advanced – after all there was some truth in it, for Malloy was the kind of hopeless idiot who could never make a decision for himself. His hatred was all for the paunchy inquisitor, the expectant scoffers in the gallery, and the bored, impassive judge, who sat unmoved with lowered lids, never stirring a finger to stop the torment of the poor lunatic in the witness box.

At last it was over. All but Rackham, Carty, Ben, and Anne Bonney had spoken on their own behalf and had been torn to shreds by Mr Mitchum, who now prepared to address the
jury. He was checked at the outset, however, by his lordship, who indicated that he wished to question the accused further.

‘It is not for me to counsel or instruct you,' he told them, ‘but I feel myself bound to urge those of you who have not spoken to your defence to do so now while there is yet time, for unless you can make some answer the jury will have little choice but to convict you. That is more than I have a right to say, but my conscience forces me to deal with you frankly.'

He seemed almost friendly, with his youthful face and those clear eyes to which their very prominence lent a suggestion of ingenuousness. Seeing them still silent he went on:

‘I shall call you in turn, and you shall answer or no as you wish. John Rackham?' He paused and the court waited breathlessly. ‘Patrick Carty? Benjamin Thorne?' His lordship looked up after each name and waited, but none of the men made any reply.

‘Anne Bonney?' His lordship's voice cut sharply across the hush. For a few seconds he paused, and then added: ‘Come, mistress, have you nothing to say?' There was a trace of irritation in his voice that made Mr Mitchum look up in wonder. ‘Have you thought of the position in which you stand?' the judge demanded.

He was looking directly at her, and his expression seemed to command an answer. She obliged him.

‘The position I stand in now concerns me less than the position I'll be standing in a few hours hence.'

From a man her reply would have won a murmur of approving laughter, from a woman it shocked them, and his lordship no less than the rest.

‘This is not the time for lightness,' he admonished her. ‘Remember the fate which will be yours if you are found
guilty, as you must surely be unless you defend yourself. Again I urge you to think carefully before it is too late.'

She looked at him curiously, a little puzzled at his insistence. Her perplexity was not shared by the rest of the court, except perhaps the clerk, Mr Prentice, who was a bachelor and a misogynist.

Mr Mitchum, who was neither, understood his lordship very well. He noted with satisfaction that the men and women in the public gallery also appreciated the situation, and were watching with ill-concealed amusement.

‘Come now,' his lordship encouraged, ‘will you not testify?' His big grey eyes were almost pleading, and Anne Bonney felt again a surge of hope. His lordship was obviously human, and with humanity Mistress Bonney knew how to deal. She had already one card prepared to play at the last; with the judge's sympathy she could be sure that it would take the vital trick.

‘What is there to say?' She made a little pout. ‘Your lordship has heard.'

And your lordship has seen and the clever bitch knows it and there's an end, thought Mr Mitchum.

‘Yes, but what have we heard?' His lordship was grave. ‘Are we to understand that you have no answer to all this.'

She shook her head. ‘I know little of courts, my lord. If it was as they say, then—' she shrugged ‘—I can only cast myself on your lordship's mercy.'

Mr Mitchum coughed drily, but his lordship seemed not to hear. He said nothing, but sat back and motioned to Mr Mitchum to commence his address to the jury. But he no longer appeared to doze in his high-backed chair; his eyes remained wide and thoughtful, straying round the court and returning always to the dock and Anne Bonney.

The human side of Mr Mitchum could be amused at him, the professional side was a little angry. Everyone knew Bernard was susceptible, but he seemed to be pushing matters too far when he paraded his weakness in court over a red-haired slut with a moist mouth and wanton eyes. However, that was not Mr Mitchum's concern; if his lordship wanted to play the fool let him do so by all means. Briskly then Mr Mitchum concluded the case for the Crown and sat down to watch with interest how his lordship would proceed to his summing-up.

He confessed later that he half-expected his lordship to plead with the jury on Mistress Bonney's behalf. It would not have surprised him, for he knew his lordship too well for a spoiled darling of fortune to suppose that he would permit any scruples of justice to stand between himself and anything he coveted. However, no such appeal was made. His lordship's address was as wholehearted a condemenation of the accused as the most fervid prosecutor could have wished; and presently the twelve good men, filled with honest zeal and the desire to show it, returned a verdict of guilty on all the accused without leaving the box.

Then, with the chaplain standing like a spectre at his side, the judge delivered the savage sentence demanded by law for those convicted of piracy on the high seas, his voice ringing hard and level above the whimpering of the boy Dobbins, who was crouching with his head on the edge of the dock between the pikes. The others, motionless, with their eyes on the judge, heard him order that they should be taken back to prison and thereafter half-hanged, disembowelled and dismembered, and their entrails burned before their faces.