The Buccaneers (25 page)

This last adventure of John Spencer began in a newspaper office in a little city on the northwest coast of Canada. The office belonged to Bruce Wishart, the publisher and editor of Prince Rupert's weekly paper, and we talked for hours about pirates and schooners and cannons.

A short haul up the hill was the Prince Rupert Library, where the story came into shape to fit the facts unearthed by research librarian Kathleen Larkin. The realities of tropical fever sent the
Dragon
to a place of swamps and mud. The real-life search for Captain Kidd's treasure took her to Culebra and brought Dasher in his brig. The picture that the word
Caribbean
might have raised in an Englishman's mind in 1802 gave John a fear of cannibals and gave Roland Abbey an eagerness to get a shot at his picaroons.

My father took as much interest in this last adventure as he did in the first, tracking down books about pirates and ships. He read the first draft, as he did with
The Wreckers
and
The Smugglers
, finding my mistakes and inconsistencies and embarrassing gaffes with a thoroughness that he called nitpicking but I called invaluable.

Jane Jordan Browne, my agent, suggested improvements that sent the story in new and exciting directions.

Lauri Hornik was my editor at Random House when I began the story. She helped it through its early stages, but when she moved to a different publisher the project was passed on to Françoise Bui, who found failings in the book that no one else had seen. It's due to her that Horn appears in his lifeboat a thousand miles from land. She improved the story in many ways.

Through it all, my wife, Kristin Miller, put up with a houseful of books, with martial music and “Heart of Oak,” and even with the sound of cannons as I staged my little battles on a computer screen.

To all these people I owe my thanks and great appreciation. I am lucky to know them.

IAIN LAWRENCE
learned to sail at the age of nine on a tiny lake on the prairies and has been an avid sailor ever since. He has owned a variety of boats, from a navy whaler to a dinghy that he built out of paper just to see if it would float. He now sails a wooden cutter called
Connection.

With his longtime partner, Kristin Miller, and their little dog, the Skipper, Iain Lawrence makes lengthy voyages up and down the north-west coast, from Puget Sound to Alaska, exploring the far-flung islets and inlets of British Columbia. He has written two nonfiction books about his experiences.

A former journalist, he writes full-time. His two critically acclaimed companions to
The Buccaneers—The Wreckers
(an Edgar Allan Poe Award nominee) and
The Smugglers
—were both published by Delacorte Press.

Iain Lawrence makes his home in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia.

Published by
Dell Yearling
an imprint of
Random House Children's Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York

Copyright © 2001 by Iain Lawrence

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of
the publisher, except where permitted by law. For information
address Delacorte Press.

The trademarks Yearling® and Dell® are registered in the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.

eISBN: 978-0-307-51518-6

February 2003

OPM

v3.0