Captain in Calico (22 page)

Malloy put up his hand to his mouth to conceal its shaking; Carty's lean face remained unmoved but for the working of
his jaw muscles; Bull gripped the edge of the dock while his smouldering eyes stared at the judge; Ben listened with quiet attention. Rackham was conscious of no emotional change; to him the sentence was nothing but a formality; he had been expecting it since the moment when Malloy's shout had brought him leaping from his resting-place on the deck and he had seen the King's colours at the truck of the great ship standing in towards them.

‘And may the Lord have mercy on your souls,' concluded his lordship, to which the chaplain pronounced amen.

The stillness which had accompanied the reading of the sentence was broken by a gentle sigh from the gallery. It was a significant sound, charged with horror as the men and women sitting there in their security mentally pictured the fate of the prisoners. But there was satisfaction blended with the horror, too; grim pleasure on the swarthy face of the merchant who sat in the front of the gallery and happy interest in the expression of the elderly rake beside him. The rake's young blonde companion was pale but there was a sparkle in her eyes as she watched eagerly the reactions of the men in the dock.

Rackham was surprised that he could watch them now without rancour; his hatred had all vanished. It was a petty, tiny thing compared with the monstrous, overpowering horror of death. There was no room in his mind for anything beyond that, and these glittering butterflies in the gallery were unimportant specks of light in a dream-world which was already slipping away behind him. Now all that mattered was the rope, the knife, and the body of John Rackham, and he knew fear as he had never known it before.

From a long way off he was aware of Anne Bonney's voice speaking, and the quiet that immediately descended as the
court gave its attention. She was pleading her belly, as the saying was; it was the usual appeal of women sentenced to death to claim pregnancy since they could not be hanged until their child was born.

The judge sat forward with as much eagerness as his exalted position permitted, and Mr Mitchum rose to provide an abrupt check to his excitement.

‘This can be verified by examination by a physician and midwife,' he said, and Chief Justice Bernard looked glum. He appeared to brighten, however, as the prosecutor went on to suggest that his lordship should give instructions to the effect that such an examination be made. Mr Mitchum did not doubt that the report would confirm the prisoner's claim, but he was wise enough not to say so.

After all, they had had a most satisfactory trial and would presently have an equally satisfactory execution. Idly, Mr Mitchum looked round from his seat at the men in the dock. He could view them almost benevolently now, as having provided him with an ideal case: interesting, but not arduous. As the court rose for his lordship's exit – still a trifle unsteady – Mr Mitchum continued to study the prisoners, noting each man's expression as he was led from the dock. They certainly looked suitably condemned and hang-dog, all except the Bonney woman, of course. He saw her exchange a glance with Rackham; and Rackham's head nodded, as though in approval, and she smiled a curious, crooked smile in return. Then she was led away under separate guard, and the pirates were filing out between their sentries.

Mr Mitchum sighed and began to assemble his papers.

While the prisoners were being taken back to Port Royal a ship was rounding Portland Point and standing into the harbour. It bore, among others, the Governor of the Bahamas, his betrothed, and his personal secretary, Master Tobias Dickey.

It was an irony that Woodes Rogers should have been pointing out to Mistress Kate Sampson the ponderous splendour of Fort Charles as they cruised past, at the very moment that Rackham, a condemned man, was being led back to his cell. For his presence there had nothing to do with them who were on their way to England to be married, and were touching at Jamaica only so that they might inspect the plantation which old Master Sampson, whose possessions extended beyond New Providence, had promised as a wedding gift.

They were not to know of the capture of the
Kingston
pirates, and Woodes Rogers would hardly have troubled about it if he had. At that moment he had no thought for anything except the marvel that this wonderful woman at his side,
twenty-odd years his junior and incredibly lovely, was soon to be his wife and was apparently well content with the prospect. This was a source of wonder to a man whose one permanent miscalculation was his underestimation of his own attraction.

Their courtship had been entirely formal. Rogers, after his early months in New Providence, had realised that for the first time in his life he was leading a fairly settled existence: it had occurred to him that in his new-found security and affluence he required a wife, and he had looked about to see what New Providence had to offer. It was not a promising field, but it had contained Kate Sampson. The Governor had been interested, then attracted, and finally enslaved. He knew, of course, that she had once been betrothed to Rackham, but had dismissed the matter as of small importance. New Providence had been an unruly place before his arrival: its people had perforce mingled with the pirates who used it as a stronghold, and Kate had been a mere seventeen at the time – an age at which she would naturally be susceptible to the glamour attaching to the young swashbuckler who had become famous among the islands as Calico Jack.

So the Governor's wooing had progressed and in course of time had been rewarded with Kate's acceptance and her father's approval. Rogers had no illusion that his own passion for her was returned in equal measure, but he had not expected it to be and was prepared to settle for simple duty and wifely devotion. It did not occur to him that he might fascinate a girl of nineteen.

And he was satisfied until the night that Rackham, like a ghost from Mistress Sampson's past, had come again to Providence. That had been a bad time for the Governor's peace of mind, but fortunately Kate had been the reverse of
enthusiastic at her former lover's reappearance, and fate and the Bonney woman had combined eventually to send Master Rackham a-pirating again and so out of Mistress Sampson's life for the second and – Rogers fervently hoped – last time.

Still, the Governor had been left with the conviction that the sooner he and Kate were wed the better, and to assure her agreement without delay he had suggested the trip to England. She had received the proposal eagerly, and they had left New Providence only a few hours before the arrival there of a sloop bearing the news of the attack on the
Star.
Thus when they sighted Jamaica they were in complete ignorance of what had befallen Rackham since his flight from Providence.

Rogers at least was not in ignorance for long. Within minutes of their reception at King's House in St Jago, the residence of the Governor, Sir Nicholas Lawes, he heard the full tale of the
Kingston
's capture and the subsequent trial from Sir Nicholas himself. His immediate reaction was one of satisfaction: here was the pestilent Rackham about to be dealt with once and for all, and Rogers could further congratulate himself on his shrewdness in having sent his cargo of silver to Charles Town instead of to Port Royal. He had called himself an over-cautious old woman at the time, changing his plans at the last minute and sending the
Star
off as a blind to any evil-doers who might have got word of the treasure shipment: well, he had been wrong to reproach himself. His precaution had been justified.

To sober his satisfaction came the thought that while Rackham was to swing for his crimes, the less Mistress Kate knew of it the better. She might, Rogers brooded, feel pity for the damned rascal. He reassured himself that the topic was not one likely to be introduced in Sir Nicholas's drawing
room during their stay, and in this he was right, but there were other rooms in King's House besides the drawing room.

On that first evening Mistress Sampson took the notion for a walk in the gardens for which King's House was famous. She would have preferred to go alone, but one of Sir Nicholas's aides offered to escort her and she could hardly refuse him. Once in the garden, however, and having no wish to be burdened by his conversation, she dispatched the young gallant for her shawl, and continued her stroll alone, drinking in the heady fragrance of the bougainvillea which cast its heavy scent over the pleasant enclosure.

Her path ran beside the verandah which surrounded the house, so that anyone following it was within a few feet of the windows of the rooms on that wing. She had stopped to admire a bloom and was about to walk on when she heard a voice speaking from almost directly above her head. Looking up, she saw that she was opposite one of the windows, that the shutters stood slightly ajar, and that the voice was coming from the lighted room beyond.

It was a young voice, loose and loud with liquor, and she recognised it as that of one of the Governor's aides, a swarthy youth named Phipps who had been in attendance that afternoon when they arrived. She would have moved on out of earshot, and had actually taken the first step when that thick voice froze her to a standstill and the blood drained from her face as she listened.

‘So they may hang Captain Calico and his rogues as high as they please, but you can lay to it they won't stretch Mistress Bonney's lovely neck. And a damned shame if they did, too; there are a thousand better uses for so fine a piece of she-flesh. Am I right, Miles?'

She heard a snigger of agreement and the clink of a bottle and glass, and only then did the full import of what Phipps had said come home to her. She could not fail to recognise the allusion to Captain Calico; there was only one man in the world he could have meant, and that was the man she had once promised to marry two long years ago and whom she had seen only once since for a brief and painful moment on the Fort roof at New Providence. Horrified and trembling she found herself holding with both hands to the edge of the verandah and straining her ears to listen.

A younger voice was speaking now, a sober voice. ‘I don't understand. Is this the woman that was condemned with the pirates this morning?'

‘Condemned, and pleaded her belly to ‘scape the gallows,' supplied Phipps.

‘But then, surely she must hang … when the child is born?' The words were said with distaste. ‘And again, I've heard it said that many condemned women will … er, plead their bellies whether they are with child or not. Perhaps this may be the case here.'

‘Perhaps indeed,' said Phipps with mock solemnity. ‘But I doubt if there's a physician in Jamaica bold enough to thwart Bernard by publishing it abroad that she's not pregnant. Eh, Miles?'

‘Bad business for him if he did,' agreed a third voice. ‘Find himself out of practice in no time. That at least. Most likely something worse.'

Phipps let out a hiccoughing laugh. ‘I'll give five to two that Mistress Bonney don't sleep alone to-night. Nor she won't be in a cell at Fort Charles, neither.'

‘But … but …' It was the young voice again. ‘I don't believe it. You make game of me.'

‘Nonsense, my lad,' cried Miles. ‘If you don't believe us, ask the others, but don't ask too loud. It's as Phipps said: Bernard'll make her his mistress for as long as it suits him – if she's half the Venus they say.'

‘But … a woman that is to hang?'

‘Bah! She'll not hang,' scoffed Phipps. ‘Bernard's not so ungenerous as that. These nine others will swing to-day week and Mistress Bonney will be reprieved pro tempore and then time'll pass and she'll be forgotten.' He sighed gustily. ‘And why not? It would be a mean-hearted brute that would waste a body like that by hanging it.'

‘But the law? The Governor?'

Phipps roared with laughter. ‘Why, man, Bernard is the law! And as for Sir Nick, why, he won't know and if he did it's odds he wouldn't care. Ye see how it is – Jamaica is very much like England, and he stands best who stands highest, for he may do what the devil he pleases. Why, Bernard would hardly have to send word to the fort commandant to-night; old Coates would have the wench on her way to Bernard's house faster than you can say knife.'

‘It would be worth his while,' mused Miles. ‘Daresay Bernard will toss a few crowns to him for services rendered. Wonder if it's true that Coates stands to attention at the sound of two guineas chinking together?'

‘God help him if he ever has to exist on his pay,' said Phipps. ‘I've heard – why, what in God's name was that?'

It took that exclamation to make Kate realise that a voice farther up the garden was calling her name. The aide had found her shawl and was now seeking its owner. She had stood motionless in the shadow by the verandah listening, but now, with the footsteps of her escort crunching towards her over the gravel, she had no choice but to move into the open.

She hurried back along the path and almost ran headlong into the arms of the aide who came bearing her shawl in triumph. He would have explained at length the details of his search, but she cut his apology short as politely as she could and expressed the wish to go indoors as the night had become too cold. As he took her arm, murmuring his concern, she heard the shutters creak and Phipps' voice grumbling vaguely into the darkness.

The details of what took place in the interval between her return to the house and the moment when her maid blew out the candle and closed her bedroom door were never clear to her afterwards. She recalled Sir Nicholas's concern when she made her excuses, pleading a headache or some such triviality, but that was all. She wanted to be alone, to think, and from what she had seen of King's House she realised that the only way to ensure privacy was to retire for the night.

She lay in bed, gazing up at the dim ceiling, recollecting what she had heard and trying to determine what it meant to her. Rackham was to die; he was to be hanged within a week, and the very thought passing through her head seemed to strip her of self-possession and leave her weak and helpless. It was impossible, she told herself; people did not just die – not people like him, who was so young, and full of strength and the very power of living. She knew she should be sorry, because he had been closer to her than any man she had ever known, and yet sorrow was not the emotion she felt. She no longer loved him, of that she was certain, for she could look back now with dispassion and even self-disdain at those kisses stolen in her father's garden years ago. But to think of him dying was fantastic and unreal and horrible.

‘They may hang Captain Calico as high as they please' – she could hear the tipsy voice, and at the mere memory
she felt sick and miserable. There was a tiny, nagging thought at the back of her mind that perhaps she could not disclaim responsibility for his downfall, but she drove it away with the answer that all that had happened between them had been long ago, that he had left her and not she him, and that no one had the right to reassert a claim voluntarily forgone for two whole years. And yet the thought returned: was she to blame? How far it was the cause of the sick agony possessing her she did not know, but it stayed to torment her. She told herself that there was nothing now that she could do, and that she was suffering from a shock that had left her distraught. Common sense insisted that fate had run its course and there was nothing to be done but strive to put the matter away and hope that in time she might forget it all. Of course, that was impossible, and it seemed to imply cowardice, and Kate Sampson's soul revolted at the thought.

Back and forth, one way or another, she lay brooding while she heard the hours told away by the chiming of a clock in the house below, and always her thoughts approached, and rejected, and came closer and closer to a resolution, and on that she fell asleep.

It said much for her strength and spirit that in spite of the shock she had received and the problem with which it left her, Kate's bearing and manner were as serene as ever throughout the following day. And in the evening, at the grand reception given in her honour and Woodes Rogers', she endured with perfect graciousness the ponderous attentions and trivial small-talk of an endless succession of notables and their wives. It seemed to her an eternity before all was done and the last guest had departed, and she could have cried with relief at the prospect of being private again, but
even now she was not to escape unchallenged. She was mounting the staircase, having paid a hurried good-night to Sir Nicholas and Rogers, when she heard her name called. She turned with an impatience which melted a little when she saw that the caller approaching across the hall was Master Tobias Dickey. He was accompanied by a tall, portly officer in the uniform of the local garrison.

‘We're barely in time, after all,' said Tobias, as he bent over her hand. ‘Ye see us, child, slaves tae duty while the rest of the world plays itself. Ma'am, may I present Colonel Coates, who commands Fort Charles? Mistress Sampson.'

Kate inclined her head to the officer, who was bending his large body almost double in his bow. Coates, she was wondering, and then she remembered where she had heard the name before. It had been only last night, outside the aides-de-camp's quarters. Coates had been named as the corrupt official who would sink his duty to oblige Chief Justice Bernard in the matter of Anne Bonney; he would have the power, of course, to permit her being taken out of prison and back again.