The Saintly Buccaneer (36 page)

Paul wrote the last words, closed the small notebook, then leaned forward and put his head on his knees. He was sitting alone in a corner of the large room, in the cobwebby hours of the morning. The din of a thousand voices had not yet begun—only the groans and cries from dreams came to him as he sat there. He tried to pray—something he’d been
doing for weeks, without much result—and he had no sense of God. He had observed that when Dan or Enoch prayed, a smile would come to their faces, and it was like they were lifted out of the dark and squalor of Dartmoor, lifted to a place of light and music and pleasure. They could pray like that for hours, and he longed to know what it was that could make the horrors of Dartmoor grow dim.

Now as he tried to pray, he did not have a similar experience, but something came to his mind—something so different that it frightened him.

It was the face of a woman, a beautiful face. He was half asleep but totally conscious of himself. He could smell the stench of the prison, feel the dank cold air, hear the bedlam of voices that was beginning to sound—but for a few seconds in his mind a scene unrolled.

He was at a ball, and the woman in his dream was there. She was outside on a terrace kissing a man, a very tall man with blonde hair and eyes bluer than any he’d ever seen. He felt a rage in him in the dream, and he saw himself going out on the terrace, seething with anger. The woman had fair skin, rich brown hair, and her clear hazel eyes were unafraid as he rushed out to meet the two. The blue eyes of the tall man were angry, and suddenly there was a violence of some sort—and then the memory faded.

By the good Lord!
Paul cried out, coming back to the present with a jerk.
I remember! I remember it!
He sat there with his heart beating, his eyes hazy with tears, for it was beyond all doubt a scene from the shadows of his past. He did not know who the man and woman were, but it was
something!

He was still sitting in the same position when Dan came in, and he immediately told him about the experience. “I don’t know who they were,” he ended, “But, Dan, I
remember!
”

Dan smiled at him and said gently, “I know who they are, Paul. The man is your cousin, Nathan Winslow—and the woman is Abigail Howland. You two both courted her. Nathan himself told me about that scene. He’d had too much
wine, and the two of you nearly had a brawl over the Howland girl.”

“It was so
real,
Dan!”

“Praise the Lord, I believe it’s a beginning, Paul. I’ve been praying about your loss of memory, and God’s going to give you back your mind and your memory.”

****

His words had been prophetic, for in the next three weeks, all through January, flashes of scenes, bits of memory, a parade of faces came to him. He’d be almost asleep, or eating or listening to the talk of his messmates, and some face would leap into his mind clear as a painting. He told no one except Dan, but the hope of regaining his memory revived his anticipation of escape.

He threw himself into the work of making soup bones into small pieces that would serve as planks for the fashioning of ship models to be sold. After whittling at this project for a while, he realized it would take six months, and at that rate he knew he’d never make enough money to bribe anyone; so he tried plaiting straw into baskets and boxes, but despaired. One day when Enoch stopped to talk to him, Paul grumbled, “We’ll never buy our way out of this place! It’ll have to be something else. Maybe we can get together and break out by force.”

“It’s been tried—and every man was killed,” Enoch informed him. “Just pray, my boy. God has you here for a purpose.”

“He has me here to be eaten alive by these pesky lice?” Paul had a bitter smile on his face as he spoke, but then added, “You’re beginning to sound like Angus Burns with his confounded Calvinism!”

“Well,” Enoch leaned forward to stir the soup he was brewing, “the lieutenant is a pretty fair Bible scholar. I remember once in Savannah a couple of years back, my cousin George was preachin’ to ’bout twenty thousand people out in the
open. He read a scripture from Romans—let’s see, it goes like this:
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.
’Course, I can’t say it like George, but I believe it like he does.”

“Why, Enoch, that doesn’t make sense!” Paul cried in exasperation. “How could a good God let us wallow in this place?”

“He let Joseph stay in a jail that was probably ’bout as bad as this one! Did that prove he didn’t love Joseph? No, sir! It proved He
did
love him. ’Cause later on, Joseph faced his brothers—who’d done him ’bout as wrong as they could—and he said, ‘You thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good.’ Why, if it was the goodness of God that put Joseph in that prison, and if he hadn’t gone through all that, he would never have been able to save ’is people from the famine.”

Paul stared at him, and replied quietly, “I’d like to believe that, Enoch. It’d be a little easier to be in this place if I thought there was a purpose in it.”

From that time on, Paul listened more and more to the words of the Bible, for each day Dan or Enoch would read aloud to the group. He borrowed the worn black Bible and pored over it, trying to find the secret, but day passed into day with nothing changed.

Winter wore on, and his hopes at times grew as cold and barren as the prison he was in. Only the flashes of memory that kept recurring and the encouragement of his friends kept him alive.

And then, one day late in the afternoon—though afternoon meant nothing inside the dark prison—he was walking aimlessly through the babbling crowd, looking at the wares brought in by the vendors that were permitted in from time to time. He had no money, but it was something to do, and he found himself confronted by a short, fat man with a handful of chestnuts. “Hey, buy some fresh chestnuts! Cheap!”

“No money,” Paul shrugged, and would have turned away,
but his arm was caught in a steely grasp, and he stared at the vendor who closed one eye in a wink. He held up a small sack and there was, Paul saw, a slip of paper protruding out of it.

Paul’s heart lurched, and he stared at the man, who grinned and murmured under his breath, “Pretend to give me some money.”

With his hands trembling, Paul reached into his ragged coat and pretended to bring out some coins and give them to the man. The vendor handed him the bag and whirled away without a word.

Paul left the crowded area at once, and getting to his own smaller area, opened the note and read:

He stared at the words, then with his heart racing, he folded the note carefully and put it in his pocket. He leaned his head against the wall and cried out to himself,
Dear God! Somebody cares!

For a week he waited impatiently, saying nothing to anyone, but on the twenty-second he was in the market with a few baskets he’d woven out of straw. They were poorly done, and none of the buyers that came in from the villages for the sale looked more than once, but he kept moving, his eyes searching for the fat man who’d given him the note. When, after hours, he did not see him, his heart sank.

He was about to leave the market area when he heard a voice at his elbow: “Let me see your baskets.”

He turned quickly—and found Charity Alden looking at him, her greenish eyes gleaming in the flickering candlelight.

“Charity!” he breathed. “Good Lord, what—!”

“No time, Paul,” she answered softly. “Show me the baskets while we talk.” She spoke quietly, and there was an assurance in her manner that brooked no argument. “You’ll walk out of here in three days—you and crew of the
Lady.
”

His head was spinning, and he responded, “How can we do that? It’s impossible!”

She gave him a smile, confident and fearless. “With God all things are possible. Just be ready. Have the crew come to the east gate. They’ll be taken out as a work party. When you get outside the prison, watch for a wagon with a canvas top. The guards have been bribed. They’ll put you in the wagons; then they’ll disappear.”

He stared at her, and would have asked more, but she said hurriedly, “I can’t stay—someone might suspect. Remember—three days!”

She took one of the baskets, gave him a coin, and left, threading her way through the milling crowd.

Paul walked back to the inner cell, his mind humming. He wanted to shout, but keeping a tight grip on himself, he said nothing until late that night. The prison went to sleep, and for a long time he listened as Dan read the Scripture. Finally, when the Bible was tucked away and the men were turning to their hammocks, he whispered, “Come close. I have news.”

They stopped, moved in close, and he began, his voice barely audible. “We’re getting out of this place in three days.” Seeing the unbelief in their eyes, he pulled the note out of his pocket and showed it to them.

“That’s Charity’s writing!” Dan uttered excitedly, keeping his voice low.

“Yes—and somehow she’s paid the guards off. We’ve got to be ready. The agreement is for six of us. Members of the crew of
The Gallant Lady
are paid for.”

“Why, that’s not me,” Enoch returned quietly.

“Yes, you’re one of us,” Paul reassured. “You’ll be going along in Lige’s place.” He stared at Enoch, saying, “I guess God took Lige home so you could make the escape with us. All things work together for good. That’s what the Book says, didn’t you tell me?”

There was a sudden burst of smiles on the men’s faces, and Paul cautioned them, “Don’t act any differently. Only the
guards on the outer gate who take the work patrols out are bought. If one soul in this place gets wind of what’s going on, it’ll be over. Everybody in Dartmoor will be lined up to make the break.”

“Paul’s right! We’ve got to act as though we were in here for the rest of our lives.”

“I promise to be as miserable as ever,” Laurence Conrad predicted, but his eyes were gleaming. “If this comes off, Winslow, I fail to see how I can remain an atheist—because only the hand of God can open the locks of Dartmoor!”

****

The air was cold as the tall man and the girl left the house and got into a wagon pulled by a sturdy pair of roan horses. A large brown canvas covered the top, raised by steel hoops. It looked no different from many such vehicles used by merchants to haul their wares from the country to the port of Plymouth. The man helped the girl onto the high seat, climbed aboard, and gave the horses a slap with the reins. They broke into a brisk walk.

Charity said nothing for a time, but she was so nervous her hands twisted in her lap, and finally the man noticed it. “You don’t have to worry, Charity. It’ll be all right.”

She looked at him, and the sight of his smile reassured her. She had instantly seen the Winslow look in William the first time she stepped inside the little house where he lived with his wife and five children. He was taller and more fair than Adam, but the family resemblance was there. He favored Nathan more, but when he’d read the long letter she had brought from Adam, he had smiled and set her fears at rest by saying, “We believe God for the deliverance of our men.”

She had spent the next weeks with his family, posing as a distant relative from America. She’d been amazed to find that the congregation of the Methodist church where William was pastor was passionately opposed to the American war. It was not a popular war anywhere in the country, she was to
discover, and William had encouraged her. “If Washington can hold out, America will win. The people here are angry at the whole thing. They’ll quit if they can find a way.”

Working out a plan to free the crew had been a matter of many meetings with many people. Charity had sold her house, and Charles had sent her what seemed to be an enormous amount of money—but getting it into the right hands was the problem.

William had proposed, “We’ll ask God for wisdom—and I think I know a thing or two that might help.” Charity never was sure how he did it, but she found herself at a luncheon in an inn in Plymouth with a man named Thomas White. He was some sort of official at Dartmoor—she never learned his exact position—and after the meal the conversation drifted to Dartmoor. William finally mentioned casually, “I understand there’s no way for the prisoners to escape, Thomas.”

“Quite impossible!” White shrugged. “And if they did, where would they go? There’s no place to hide; we’d have them back in a few hours—or dead, more than likely. The guards are really callous. Just as soon kill a man as look at him.”

They talked about that for a time, and then William commented, “Miss Alden here is quite saddened. Some of her people are in your charge at Dartmoor.”

“Oh?” White suddenly stared at her with fresh interest. At William’s direction, she had purchased expensive clothing just for the meeting and she felt the man’s eyes on the diamond necklace that had been bought for an enormous price in London. “How is that, may I ask, Miss Alden?”

She told him of the
Lady,
and he listened carefully as she ended by saying, “I intend to buy a new ship, and I’ll miss my crew.” She looked carefully at the massive ruby ring that glowed on her finger and gave a little laugh. “It’ll cost a fortune to train a new crew—and I was so fond of them. As a matter of fact, Mr. White, one of the men is my fiance. I am sick over it.” Then she sighed and said in the saddest tone
she could muster, “If it were only a matter of
money,
there would be no problem!”

White did not take his gaze from her, and replied, “How sad! We’ll all be glad when this war is over. I as much as anyone.” Then he sipped his coffee and remarked without emphasis, “I would be glad to do anything I can for you, Miss Alden. Let me know if I can be of any service.”

After Charity and William had bidden their farewells and were on their way home, William chuckled and repeated White’s statement, “I would be glad to do anything I can for you.” He laughed aloud and put his arm around Charity, saying, “In translation, that means
I am for sale! How much will you give me to let them go?
”