Captain in Calico (24 page)

‘The resentment was not all on your side,' she told him. ‘When I heard how you had fought over that woman I was …'

‘Fought over whom? I fought over no one. Ye mean with La Bouche? That was no more than a tavern quarrel, God knows over what, for I was not sober at the time. As for Anne Bonney, she dressed my wounds, poor soul. Better for her if she'd left me be – aye, better for all of us. Penner would be alive, and she would still be riding in her carriage about Providence. Instead she'll go with the rest. And I'm sorry for that.'

Seeking to cheer him, she recounted a detail of what she had overheard at King's House.

‘I think you may set your mind at rest over her. She is not likely to hang, if what they say is true. This Bernard, the justice, has looked kindly on her. The talk is that she has
become his mistress, and that he will contrive to postpone her execution. It may be gossip, but I think not.'

‘Well, then God be thanked for that,' he said.

‘I suppose you loved her,' she said quietly.

‘Loved her?' He smiled wryly. ‘No. Men don't love the Anne Bonneys of this world. They only think they do, for a little while. She knew that, and so she must use every man for what she can get. Who shall blame her? Not I, God knows. I can pity her, now, although but for her it's odds I'd be an honest privateersman this day. It seems women are unlucky for me, and I for them. I've brought little good to you, my dear; we should be thankful it's no worse.'

‘Could it be any worse?' she demanded. ‘Can anything be worse than death?'

He smiled. ‘No – although there are some will tell you it is preferable to dishonour. Myself, I think they cannot know what death is like. They should go roving a while; it might teach them things.'

Her lip trembled and she bit it in an endeavour to keep back her tears. He put his hand beneath her chin and raised her face.

‘Nay, now, what's the matter?' His voice was gentle. ‘What would you have me say? Cry and whimper because I must pay my shot, or curse and rant against the King and the law and aught I can lay tongue to? That would mend nothing.' It was remarkable how easy it was to sound brave when he spoke to her; it seemed almost virtuous to lie if it would comfort her.

‘I know.' She drew in a little quick breath and tried to keep her voice steady. ‘But it is … different for a woman. If only … oh, if only it had gone otherwise … any one of a thousand things could have happened rather than this.
Perhaps if you were angry or hated me it would seem better – I don't know how. But you talk as though it was no more than … than, oh, nothing at all!' Her voice choked and she turned her face away. ‘I am sorry. I only make things worse for you. But I cannot forget that but for me … oh, but for me it would not be like this.'

He shook his head. ‘That's not so, as I've told you. And if it was that belief that brought you here, why then, you were wrong.' He paused. ‘Was that why you came – to blame yourself to me?'

‘I … I don't know … perhaps.'

‘Was it because you still loved me, Kate?'

She turned and looked at him, her face very pale. She could lie, and say ‘Yes,' or she could try to explain what she did not truly understand herself – that she could not stay away while there was that tiny voice forcing her on. It was impossible to tell him what had brought her. It was a question she had not been able to answer in the past thirty-six hours: she wondered could she ever answer it.

While she stood irresolute there was the soft pad of feet in the passage followed by a rapping at the door.

‘Commandant's rounds in a few minutes, m'lady,' said the jailer's voice, and after a pause he sidled in, looking apologetically at Kate. ‘Beggin' your pardon, but I thought as you'd wish to be gone afore he come, m'lady. Not that ‘e minds womenfolk in the cells, but seein' you ain't one o'
them
, I thought …'

She nodded. ‘I shall come at once,' and the jailer slipped out.

She forced herself to meet Rackham's eyes again. There was that question still unanswered, and her own doubts still unsettled in spite of his protestations. And time was running out.

‘Oh, if only there was something I could do!' It was a cry of frustration born of her own helplessness. ‘Some way …'

His voice was not quite steady. ‘God bless you for that.' He seemed to be about to add something more but changed his mind. Then he motioned towards the door. ‘Best be gone.'

To stay longer would only be to protract her own misery, to say nothing of the risk of detection.

‘Good-bye, then,' she said. It was almost a whisper, and she realised with horror that the phrase held a terrible finality.

‘Good-bye, Kate. It was … it was like you. To come, I mean.'

Then she was in the passage, and the little jailer was snapping home the bolts.

‘Pardon me, m'lady, but we'd best make haste. If ye'll follow me as quick's ye can.'

She had the presence of mind to pull her hood forward to shield her face as they passed through the vaulted guard-room at the end of the passage. There were a few soldiers lounging there, but their ribald invitations went unheard, and presently she was at the main gate, having parted with another ten guineas to the grateful jailer.

She passed the sentries and was in the street once more, in a thoroughfare coloured and alive, a place of noise and bustle where the sun shone and the strong salt breeze from the sea held its own even with Port Royal's varied odours. It seemed impossible that two such worlds could be so close together – this one and that other of stone and iron that she had left.

She heard behind her the rattle of a side-drum from the fort and turned to look back through the gate. On the other side of the parade was the solid pile of the main fort building from which she had lately emerged, and down the stone steps
from the battlements a party of officers was descending. There was something familiar about the leading figure, something unpleasantly familiar, and she recognised him as Colonel Coates. She stepped quickly back into the shelter of the wall, but he and his party turned aside at the foot of the steps and vanished presently round the angle of the keep.

The sooner she was away the better; if Coates had noticed her and made enquiries it could have been embarrassing both for her and Woodes Rogers, and Coates, she was certain from her brief acquaintance with him, was the kind who would enjoy stirring up mischief. She could not picture him turning a blind eye unless it was in his interest to do so. Since he was reputed corruptible he would possible even sink to blackmail, and … She stopped dead in the act of stepping into the street, overwhelmed by the thought that drove everything else from her mind.

The sentry outside the gate watched with mild interest the behaviour of the young lady who stopped so abruptly as she was passing his post. He saw her go pale, and stare back at the empty gateway with a tense expression for which he could see no good reason, and then set off down the street at a pace which he considered undignified in one who, if he was any judge, was of the quality.

Kate found her carriage where she had left it in a narrow by-street. She took her seat and ordered the coachman to drive to the address of her father's agent in Port Royal – she had intended to visit him over that gift of land which was to be her wedding-present, but that had nothing to do with her present urgent business. As the carriage jerked and rolled slowly along to the accompaniment of a flow of imprecations from the driver at the lumbering vehicles which impeded them, she sat in an agony of impatience, fearful that the
resolve taken so quickly outside the fort would cool if she were delayed in committing herself. She knew the folly of the course she intended; it was frightening to think of it, but even more frightening to think that her courage might fail her if she was not quick to put it into execution.

At the premises of Matthew and Wayman, her father's agents, she was received with all the deference due to the daughter of so important a client. Here she drew on her father's account, as she had his permission to do, but to a much greater extent than he would have readily approved. In fact the size of her withdrawal made even Mr Wayman, who waited on her personally, catch his breath, but if he had doubts he kept them to himself. He guessed that it would be impolitic to question the action of this self-assured young woman who was, after all, heiress to an immense fortune and therefore not to be crossed lightly.

Having been bowed out and handed to her coach she hesitated for a second before giving instructions to her driver. There was still time to draw back from what she knew was a wildly dangerous business, but she had her father's gift for calculating chances and it appeared to her that she ran an even risk. With courage in the balance she could succeed, and she had never known reason to doubt her courage.

She leaned back in her carriage, bestowed a gracious smile on Mr Wayman, and addressed the driver.

‘Back to Fort Charles.'

Rackham sat listening, straining his ears against the silence that mantled the fort, but beyond the heavy cell door all was as quiet as the grave.

This was the last day. In a few minutes he would hear feet along the passage, and the rasping of the bolt, and his door would be flung back, and he would look up and see the red coats of his escort in the passage and the armourer with his bilboes and handcuffs. They would chain him and drag him out into the sunlight, and then the hangman would choke him almost – but not quite – unconscious and they would rip him open from crutch to chest and drag out his entrails and burn them in front of him. With any luck he would be dead before they had finished.

Oddly enough, it seemed less frightening now than it had done a few days ago. It would be a few seconds of sickening, frightful agony, but then it would be suddenly dark and the pain at an end.

He was glad he had seen Kate: that at least was something worth remembering. He had had bad luck there, but then
he had never been particularly lucky in anything. At least it was something to have known her, a time of peace and sunshine in a short, turbulent life that had known little of either.

It was still as silent as ever. He wondered why they did not come for him. At least ten minutes must have passed since he had heard the sound of his companions being led out of their cell along the passage. He had listened to the irregular clank of the armourer's hammer as he fettered them, and had stood waiting with a cold sweat on his face, expecting them to come for him as well. But they had not come. Perhaps they were saving him for the benefit of the spectators who would be assembling at Gallows Point. The final act of the play. The great tragedy of Captain Calico Jack Rackham.

Hearing the others go had been horrible. He had not slept, and through the hours he had listened to the hellish din they had made in their last desperate carouse. There had been no women, of course – men were liable to lose their reason on the last night before execution; there were those who would kill a woman out of sheer blood-lust and cruelty, knowing that they were to die anyway and that nothing more could be done to punish them than the hangman would do in the morning. But even without the trollops they had been howling drunk, roaring their choruses and yelling abuse, fighting with each other and smashing bottles, and hammering at their cell door until it seemed they must be in the last stages of exhaustion.

Some time shortly before dawn Rackham had fallen asleep, and had been summoned back to consciousness by the ring of the armourer's hammer. Then Bull's voice had broken out in a bellow of song – evidently he was still drunk – and added to that there had been a high quavery voice – Malloy, singing a psalm. They had sung together, the animal bellowing of a
filthy ballad mingling with the flat cracked notes of the sacred song.

Then the boy Dobbins had begun to cry, begging the jailers to leave him behind, and suddenly breaking out into hysterical shrieks. Rackham had heard Earl's voice, swearing, and Bull bellowing louder than ever, and then there had been the sound of a body falling and the screaming was replaced by a soft whimpering while the hammer clanked on relentlessly. Bull had still been ranting when he left the cell, his huge voice drowning even the shouted orders of the sergeant of the guard.

And then suddenly: ‘Where's Calico? Where's that long white bastard, hey? I want to see his guts come out. Where the hell are ye, Rackham? I want to see thee swing, tha Bristol pimp!'

And then Malloy's voice had piped up again.

‘Good cheer, friends, be of good cheer.' It was a flat, strange tone that Rackham had never heard him use before, and he realised that Malloy, never very sane, must have gone mad at last. ‘Remember the thief that died with Our Lord and was made whole by the blood of the Lamb. There is no stain so dark but it may be washed out, so ye all repent your sins. It is but a short road now to the Throne of Glory and none shall be turned away that truly repent. Take heart, take heart, and lift up your eyes to see the light of the Lord his Grace
that shines through the darkness of death, and by which ye are made whole.' Then he stopped and after a moment spoke again in his usual voice: ‘Billy! Brother Billy Tyrrell, Mary's here. Aye, so she is, and young Pen, as ever was. Run and tell them, quick. Run, I say.' His voice rose suddenly into a blood-chilling screech. ‘Run, damn you, run!'

His shout trailed away into a hysterical laugh, while the boy Dobbins began to weep and curse afresh. Rackham had listened, horrified and yet fascinated, until the crying and the rattle of the guard's accoutrements died away and there was nothing but silence in the fort.

Now fifteen minutes had gone, and he had had time to think of death and Kate and a thousand other things, and still they did not come. He wondered where Anne Bonney was – a ridiculous, illogical thought. Was she yearning for Kinsman, he wondered? And from that his thoughts flew to Penner, dead and buried in the sand on Mosquito Bank.

At least he had been granted the mercy of a quick thrust and a speedy release. No horror of mutilation under the disembowelling knife for Penner. Yet he must have suffered too, and Rackham remembered the glaring sunlight and the sickly smell of his own blood and the wicked glittering sliver of steel in the hand of La Bouche moving in to kill him. That had been a bad moment; he had felt then as Penner must have felt when Kinsman pinned him. And both times, she had been there, languid and yet eager, smiling, and filled with hot excitement, and even as the image crossed Rackham's mind he heard the soft slither of a footstep in the passage.

He caught his breath and swung round. Then the bolt snapped back and the door creaked inward on its ponderous hinges.

A man stood on the threshold – a man Rackham had never seen before. He could be certain of that, for the face beneath the brim of the broad black hat was a sight not readily forgotten. It was the kind of face he had seen on corpses, grey and lifeless, with the skin taut over the cheek-bones, its death-like quality belied by the liveliness of its bright sunken eyes.

With a jerk of his head the creature motioned Rackham out of the cell, standing aside to let him pass, and then carefully closing the door and rebolting it. Mystified, Rackham looked about him for other guards, but the passage was empty. There was no one but this weird figure in his rusty black hat and tatty coat, and not a sound to indicate the presence of a living soul.

But if the situation was beyond Rackham's understanding he could at least see the opportunity it offered. The chance of escape might be infinitesimal but it was better than no chance at all. The thought formed in the second which passed as the thin man shot home the bolt, and as he straightened up Rackham was turning in a movement that would have ended in a plunge at the other's throat. The thin man saw the sudden turn and made a leisurely movement of his right hand, and Rackham was staring into the cold twin barrels of a heavy pistol. He checked himself abruptly and the thin man's bloodless lips parted in a grin. With a thrill of horror Rackham saw that he had no tongue.

But tongue or not, there was no doubt of the professional ability behind the pistol. The mute gestured with it, and Rackham obediently moved down the passage, his strange escort stalking a few paces behind. The passage turned sharply and terminated in a winding flight of stone steps, but a grunt from the mute urged him on, and they mounted to a second
passage which Rackham judged must run directly above the first. Here, however, there was matting on the flags, and instead of iron wall brackets there were were small brass lamps. There were doors on the left side with little rush mats before them, and an air of warmth and habitation about the place. Curiosity contended with Rackham's fear as he went on, until opposite the third door another grunt from the mute brought him to a halt. Still there was no sound in the fort and he began to wonder if the place was deserted after all.

The mute rapped on the panels. A voice answered and the mute raised the latch and pushed the door open. Grinning, he jerked his thumb, and as Rackham went past him, put out a hand and patted him on the shoulder. It felt like a handful of dry sticks rattling together.

Rackham went into the room and heard the door close at his back. He knew without looking that the mute was no longer there and that the only other occupant of the room was the man who sat writing at a table before the window. It was a broad, panelled apartment with matting underfoot, a fire spluttering merrily in the grate, and a brass clock ticking on the mantel. The man at the desk looked up.

‘Aye, there ye are,' said Master Tobias Dickey.

For a moment Rackham did not recognise him. The chubby face and neat wig were familiar, so was the brisk voice; but they seemed to belong to a time far back in memory. Then recollection came, and he realised that it was only weeks, not years, since he had seen this man before.

He stared, wondering what this might mean, while the lawyer regarded him gravely.

‘I'll break the news as best I may,' said Master Dickey. He leaned forward in his chair and looked intently at the other's
face. ‘You are not to hang,' he said carefully. ‘Not to hang. Ye understand?'

If he had expected an immediate display of emotion he was disappointed. Rackham did not react because at first the meaning of what he had heard did not penetrate his understanding – could not because it was so much at variance with sense and logic and what he had been conditioning his mind to for weeks.

The lawyer spoke again. ‘Don't ye understand? Ye're not to be executed at all. At least, if ye are, ye'll be in grand company, wi' myself alongside you.'

Rackham found his tongue at last. ‘What do you mean?' His voice was hoarse. ‘How … how … not to … to … die?'

‘Not unless ye're careless, or aught miscarries.'

Rackham looked round helplessly, bewildered. Master Dickey watched with interest for a moment. ‘There now,' he said. ‘Come over here, in front of the table, and pay heed to what I say to ye.'

Rackham came forward, hesitantly. He was trembling, but a great excitement was constricting his chest and his breathing.

‘I don't understand,' he said, and Dickey caught the mounting edge of panic in his voice.

‘Of course ye don't. But ye shall in a moment, when ye're your own man again. In the meantime let me tell ye that you're not out o' the wood yet, not by a good step. Ye'll need all your faculties if ye're to ‘scape the gallows – and there's more than your own life in it. There's mine and another's – aye, and a third, too, perhaps, and that more precious than the rest o' us together. So take a grip on yourself, Master Calico, for one blunder and we're done.'

Rackham nodded and took the chair which Dickey indicated while the lawyer crossed to a sideboard and returned with a glass and decanter.

‘Medicine for a shaking hand,' observed Dickey. ‘Sup that, but go slowly. And listen.'

Rackham lifted the glass – it was rum – and the burn of the spirit made him realise that he was cold, but he took only a mouthful before setting it down again.

‘First,' began Dickey, ‘ye're to escape. Ye've been bought off – for a sum which to my mind is a great deal more than ye're worth, although I don't expect ye to share my view. Aye, ye can stare, but bought is what ye've been.'

‘But …' Rackham was beginning, but Master Dickey waved him to silence.

‘Aye, how does one buy the life of a condemned felon, ye would ask? I'll confess it was new to me, but Jamaica's a grand place to go to school.' He resumed his seat and clasped his hands in front of him on the table.

‘Ye're dead. Officially dead. Ye died by hanging, secundem artem, at six of the clock this morning on a spot known as Gallows Key. There ye were buried. Your execution took place before the others because it came to the ears of the authorities – in this case the commandant of this fort, one Colonel Coates – that there was popular sympathy for you on the waterfront. A demonstration was feared.' Master Dickey smiled wryly. ‘That's the tale and who's to doubt it? If any did, I'll wager a guinea to a groat there's a body in the sand of Gallows Key this minute. Corpses are not hard to come by, and if there's lime in the grave no one will ever ken the difference.'

‘But the commandant, this Coates?' Words burst out of Rackham in a sudden flood. ‘You mean he managed this?'

Master Dickey nodded. ‘That he did. For five thousand pounds. A substantial fee, as I said. And when ye consider, was the risk so great? He issues the dead warrant, the folk grumble that they didn't see ye turned off, but does anyone suspect for a moment that ye're not dead at all? The point is that the military have charge of executions, and soldiers not only do what they're told, they think what they're told. They'll ask no questions.'

Rackham tried to digest this, but there were a hundred things he did not understand – principally who should pay five thousand pounds on his behalf.

‘The next step is by far the more dangerous,' went on Dickey. ‘You'll be taking it yourself very shortly. Ye see, Coates is bribed wi' five thousand pounds, for which he hangs you in absentia and none the wiser. But there his part ends. Oh, he was adamant on that. So other agents go to work – myself, for one. With the …'

‘But why? interrupted Rackham. ‘Why you?'

‘Wheesht a minute. As I say, with the result that when the
Willem Damman
, a Dutch brig, puts out of Port Royal to-day for Dominica, you'll be aboard her. That,' added Master Dickey, ‘cost another three hundred. Take another sup o' the rum, man. Ye look as though ye need it.'

Rackham obeyed and repeated his question. ‘What have you to do with all this?'