Devil's Ballast

by Meg Caddy

  I never had the chance. He came back to the bars and leaned in. His voice was low.

  ‘The rest of the crew leaves to spend their money and have a night of freedom,’ he said. ‘We will move when they are gone, so be ready.’

  For a moment I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t push my mind past this strangeness. Why would he help me? What did he have to gain? And did I trust him?

  I didn’t have time for doubt. I had to take the chance.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t let on. Be ready.’

  I struggled to keep my voice level. ‘Always.’

  14

  BONNY

  Night darkened all corners of the ship. I couldn’t shut off the nerves that twitched my body. My eyes flicked into nooks and shadows and my ears pricked with the slightest sound. The vessel groaned. The waves were muted against the hull, but I could hear them, the constant push and rasp I had lived with for the last few months. It was like a lullaby. I was twelve when we left Ireland, me and my parents, and sailed to Charles Town. I remembered sitting below with my mother, listening to her croon in harmony with the tides. I sought solace in the memory now, some kind of calm centre, but there was no comfort in it. Even then, my mother had been sickly. She died a few months after we landed.

  Shadows danced on the wall of the brig, threaded through the imprint of the bars. There was a lamp at the top of the companionway and every so often I saw men moving past. They lugged barrels and sacks and clattered down the steps. I strained my ears listening for the sound of guns and swords. Barnet would be there soon; I would be dragged off the ship and into a cell. There would be no hope for me then.

  Read was catlike as he finally descended the stairs.

  ‘You took your time,’ I hissed, weak with relief.

  ‘I had to be sure the others were out of the way.’ He turned the key in the lock and pulled the door open.

  ‘Did you bring me a gun?’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘I’ve seen you shoot.’

  ‘I’d be an idiot to shoot you.’

  He hesitated, then passed me a flintlock. I tested the weight in my hand. My fear swept away. Was there a more invincible feeling than being freshly armed?

  ‘That smile concerns me. Let’s go.’ Read went first. He went quiet for such a tall man, soft-footed and careful. I followed him. I didn’t have time to pause and enjoy the fresh air, the cool touch of the wind on my cheek, but I savoured it.

  The Albion was gentle in the Havana harbour, swaying and knocking on the jetty. Once we were on the open decks Read ducked, keeping low to avoid being seen from the shore. I stooped as well. We didn’t go to the gangplank but instead to the seaward side of the ship. Read had secured a rope ladder to the stern. When I leaned over, I saw a small boat waiting, secured by a line.

  ‘You don’t do things by halves, do you?’ I whispered.

  ‘You first. Go.’

  My leg was still stiff from the bruising a few days before but it was better than it had been. I swung myself over the rail and climbed down the rope ladder, letting my arms take most of my weight. I eased myself into the boat and couldn’t help reaching into the salt water, splashing it over my face. After days in the brig, the water was a luxury.

  Read followed. He wasn’t as comfortable in the ropes as me, but he was strong and sure.

  ‘Mister Read!’

  He stopped halfway. Looked up at Oliver, peering over the rail at us. His face was pale in the dim light of the ship lanterns.

  Read kept climbing. ‘Come with us,’ he said.

  Oliver drew back. ‘My mum got me this job,’ he hissed.

  ‘Come on, Oliver.’

  ‘I send her back money.’

  ‘We’ll find a new job.’

  Oliver shook his head and backed away. He disappeared from the railing without another word. Read dropped into the boat. It was too dark to see his face but the silence between us was taut.

  Read waited. I think he was hoping for Oliver to change his mind and swing over the railing. But there was no sign of the boy and soon we saw torches flickering on the jetty. Read took a breath, then an oar.

  ‘Will he be all right?’ I asked, my eyes tracking back to the ship.

  Read lowered his head. ‘Just row,’ he said.

  We went without lamp or light, our boat slipping between the ships in silence. We rowed slowly, careful of the movement of our oars in the water. When we pulled clear of hulls we kept our heads low, and from the Albion to the shore neither of us said another word. My heart kept up a strange double-stutter the whole way. I remembered, in a brief flash of delight and fear, the night I fled my husband. Dodging the shadows in Nassau. Terrified he would come after me. Terrified I would stumble upon rowdy pirates. Wild and frantic by the time I found Calico. Sobbing in his arms, breathless and shaking because no one had ever kissed me so gently.

  Annie. Do you love me?

  Ah, Calico. I came to sea with you, didn’t I?

  And I locked those thoughts away because where was Calico now? The only trace of him was the baby in my belly.

  We didn’t tie the boat but we dragged it up the beach and shoved it alongside two others. I had never been to Cuba before. Even in the moonlight I could see that Havana was a pale city, sandy and sparse, holding back the thick trees that hedged in from further inland. Without a crew behind me, only Read at my side, it seemed impossibly big. And Cunningham was a common enough name, even in a Spanish port. I wished that Calico and I had taken the time to go through the details.

  But I was out in the clear air and I had an ally. Even if I couldn’t begin to guess his motives.

  We stole up along the beach towards the dirt track to the city. Neither of us said a word.

  I sat in a corner of a tavern draped in Read’s large jacket and ate some dried beef. It wasn’t much but it was more than I’d had on the ship and my stomach was grateful. I watched Read as he leaned on the bar, his manner casual, easy. As if he had lived all his life on the docks of Havana and had known these men for years. Money changed hands. Bribes of silence, I guessed. I pushed back the questions that surged through my mind. Why was he helping me? What did he want?

  He strolled back with hot drinks and more food. I wasn’t sure exactly what the food was. Beans; some sort of meat.

  ‘Some of the men had suggestions,’ Read said. ‘I have enough pay to last us out a few weeks, but I’d rather not use it up if we can go to ground safely. Do you trust these Cunninghams?’

  ‘I don’t know them.’

  ‘Do you trust the man who sent you to them?’

  I caught my breath and faltered. Did I?

  ‘Yes,’ I said. The word came out strong.

  ‘Then that is our best option.’ He drank from his mug and sat back, brow tucking as he thought. ‘Eat quickly, then we start searching.’

  We ate in silence. I wanted to ask all my questions but I didn’t. I doubted I would get answers.

  Once we were done with our meal we went out into the streets of Havana. ‘In Havana, by the port,’ was all Calico had told me, and it wasn’t a lot to go on. I thought I remembered him talking about them before. What was the husband, a stevedore? A fisherman or a cooper?

  ‘One of the men back there knows a fisherman called Cunningham,’ Read said, as if reading my thoughts. ‘We’ll start there.’

  The fisherman wasn’t the Cunningham we were looking for but he had an uncle who was a merchant and a cousin who was a stevedore. Read and I debated quietly for a short while but in the end he deferred to my half-memory and we went to find the stevedore. He lived in a small house by the harbour with sturdy walls and a brick-tile roof. Not the house of a rich man, but a real house all the same. It was much more than I had shared with James Bonny on Nassau. I stood in front of the door for a few breaths, trying to summon the courage to knock. Finally Read leaned over my shoulder and did it for me. I couldn’t say why I had hesitated.

  It was a woman who answered the door. She was tall a
nd fat and beautiful, with brown eyes and more freckles than I had ever seen on another person. She folded her arms and leaned against the doorframe. Her eyes were swollen from sleep and she wore a man’s old coat over her nightclothes.

  ‘No beggars,’ she said.

  ‘We are not beggars, ma’am.’ Read’s rough voice belied his manners. ‘We come from a man named Calico Jack.’

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘So you say. Who are you?’

  I weakened with relief. ‘My name is Anne Bonny. I’m—’

  ‘Calico’s girl,’ she finished, her shoulders relaxing, and I felt a twitch of annoyance. I was young but I wasn’t anyone’s girl.

  ‘He wrote you?’ My mind flipped over the numbers. How could a letter have reached Havana so fast? Where had he sent it from? Who had delivered it?

  ‘Wrote us? No, he was here two days back.’

  The news hit me like a marlinespike. I lost my breath. Here two days back. ‘Is he still in port?’

  ‘No. He shipped out yesterday on the morning tide. Said if by some miracle you showed up on our doorstep, we should take you in.’ Her eyes flicked to Read. ‘…He didn’t say anything about this fellow.’

  Yesterday. I had missed him by a crossing of the sun.

  My lungs felt like they had caved in.

  I choked back my disappointment. ‘This fellow saved my life.’ I hesitated. ‘And the life of Calico’s child.’

  Read stiffened. I almost grinned at the blank shock on his face. Felt good to give him a turn, when he was always so calm. He’d gone pale. I wondered if he was realising, in that moment, exactly what sort of a fate he’d saved me from when he stopped Barnet from beating me.

  ‘Hmm. Calico mentioned that too.’ She studied me a moment more, then stepped aside. ‘Better come in, both of you. I’m Rose Cunningham. My man Walter’s out but he’ll be back soon enough. How far along are you?’

  ‘It’ll be close to three months now. Far as I can tell. I’m not a midwife.’

  ‘A half-drowned rat is what you are.’ Her broad face crinkled as we passed. ‘And you smell like one too, dear. You’d best get yourself cleaned before you take to any of my fresh linens. Do you have clothes to spare?’

  ‘Nothing but what I’m wearing.’

  ‘Well, mine won’t fit you very well but we’ll have to make do. And as your belly grows that might be for the best.’ She rounded on Read before he was even properly inside. ‘And you. Mind your manners. No messing around or there’ll be a reckoning, do you understand? I don’t care if you’re a pirate or a brigand or the King himself. You’ll keep civil under my roof.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Read had gathered himself enough to answer, and he slipped back into his easy way like it was nothing. Still, I felt his eyes on me. Reassessing. Turning it over in that quiet mind of his.

  ‘Why didn’t you say?’ Read waited until Rose was in the next room, boiling hot water, before he spoke. He was supposed to be in the next room changing his clothes and I was supposed to be changing mine but instead we stood at the door and whispered to one another.

  ‘What would it have helped?’

  ‘I never would have let Barnet come so close to…’ He clamped his mouth shut. ‘I would have brought you more food, anyway.’

  His concern made me uncomfortable. It was the first time he had treated me like a woman, I realised. Like other men treated women. Like I couldn’t be trusted to make my own decisions. ‘No harm done.’

  ‘You could have come to a good deal of harm.’

  I shrugged and retreated further into the room, grabbing Rose’s large clothes. I didn’t much care if Read saw me, not now that all my secrets were in the open. I stripped and used a wet flannel and a bucket of warm water to quickly scrub off the worst of the dirt. When I turned back, I realised Read had quietly closed the door and taken to his own room. I grinned at the thought of Martin Read, sailor and soldier, so tall and imposing, gone shy.

  I cracked the door a few moments later. He whipped around, doing up the laces at the front of the shirt Rosa had given him.

  ‘Knock,’ Read said curtly.

  ‘Calm down, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.’ I stepped into the room and noticed his muscles tightening, his face becoming guarded and taut. ‘Are you going to stay here?’ I asked.

  ‘Only until I find a job at the docks,’ he replied. ‘Maybe further west than here. Once the Albion is out of the harbour and it’s safe, I’ll take another room.’

  It felt strange, to talk about parting. Much had happened in a short time.

  ‘And you?’ he asked. ‘When you…will you stop here to have the child?’

  ‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’

  ‘Where will you go after?’

  ‘Back to our ship.’ I said it with more certainty than I felt. ‘Back to Calico.’

  ‘Do you miss him?’

  Calico’s blue eyes. The flash of his coat as he walked across a deck. It was so easy to want him when he wasn’t around, I thought wryly. When we couldn’t bicker or disagree or misunderstand one another. My heart skittered at the thought of him but I tried to keep my mind clear.

  ‘I’ll live.’

  ‘That was not the question.’

  I shook my head. I had maybe six long months ahead of me before I could even think of going back to Calico and the crew. ‘You don’t…’ I trailed off as a loud clamour sounded outside. I felt my heart speed, my hands dampen. A flash of memory shot across me: Nassau at night, overrun with pirates, drunkards, violence. I wanted to go to the window but I couldn’t make myself move. In the end it was Read who crossed the room and glanced out.

  ‘Looks like Barnet’s knocked up a crowd,’ he said. He looked over his shoulder at me. ‘You’ll have to stay indoors for a few days at least. The captain is a proud man. He doesn’t like to lose.’

  ‘That could be said for all of us.’ I tried to ignore the sounds on the docks. We were safe for now. I wouldn’t leave the house until Barnet was back at sea.

  I hesitated, then finally asked the question that had been on my mind since Read let me out of the brig. ‘Why did you help me?’

  Read pulled the shutters across and stepped away from the window. He leaned against the wall and shrugged.

  ‘No single reason,’ he said. ‘I have not been easy with Captain Barnet’s methods for some time. And the crew…’ His jaw hardened. ‘They are hard men, with a hard purpose. I suppose that was to be expected, but I had thought to see some honour there, too. I did not think I would find myself completely alone with a crew of louts and thugs.’

  That made sense to me. I had spent the last few months sailing with louts and thugs, but at least they never pretended to be anything else. They didn’t try to justify it with King and Country.

  ‘But I was sorry to leave Oliver behind,’ Read reflected. ‘It will not be easy for him. Still, I never planned to stay long on the Albion.’

  I had more questions but I sensed this was an end to Read’s answers.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said at last.

  He shrugged again but I reached over and caught his arm. ‘Read. Thank you. I have met few decent men. You’re one of them.’

  I didn’t wear sincerity well. It felt uncomfortable and stiff.

  As Read opened his mouth to reply, there was a crash. A shout, fists hammering on the door. We both jumped into action. He blew out the candle and we took up our weapons, standing on either side of the door, pressed against the wall.

  The banging on the door continued. I breathed hard. My eyes fixed on Read, standing opposite me. His face was tense and his eyes were focused, dark. An unexpected twist of guilt upset my stomach. I had called him a decent man. What had I pulled this decent man into?

  ‘My husband isn’t here!’ Rose’s voice rose through over the commotion. ‘What do you mean by all this?’

  ‘Out of the way.’

  ‘I won’t let you in.’ She spoke with all the authority of a general at war, her words crack
ing out over the chatter and murmur of men.

  ‘Stand aside!’

  ‘Don’t touch me!’

  Someone was going to be killed. Could I stand by and let it happen? I wasn’t going to hand myself in. Maybe we could get out through the window, get out before it could escalate.

  The door clapped open again.

  ‘What is all of this?’ A man shouted over it all. ‘Let go of my wife. How dare you!’

  This must be Walter Cunningham, I thought.

  ‘We are here seeking wanted criminals.’ I recognised the other voice. It was Barnet’s bosun, a solid man named Hutch. ‘Your wife refuses to stand aside.’

  ‘Of course she does! We are respectable people! Is it your habit to manhandle women, sir? Are you a gentleman?’

  A silence, and I realised after a moment that it was a shamed silence. I could hardly believe it.

  ‘I can assure you there are no criminals in this house,’ Cunningham went on. ‘By all means, come inside and make an inspection. But I will be taking my complaints to your captain.’

  There was some shuffling and a deal of muttering. Someone came inside. Cunningham didn’t know we were there, I thought. Were we in trouble? Read cocked his gun.

  Footsteps near the door.

  ‘Walter!’ Rose’s voice, cracking with distress. ‘Will you let them into our personal rooms? These strange men, in our bedroom? My underclothes—’

  ‘All seems to be in order.’ Hutch spoke hurriedly, and the footsteps retreated. There was some more quiet conversation and Cunningham promised to give assistance if he caught any trace of us. Then the door closed and quiet fell.

  I slid down against the wall, relief making me light-headed. I rested a hand on my belly, on the child, wondering if the fluttering there was me or it. The Cunninghams talked quietly on the other side of the door, then Rose cracked it open.

  ‘It’s safe,’ she said.

  Walter Cunningham joined her in the threshold. He was a chubby man with bright eyes and a warm smile. He laughed when he saw me. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘You’re exactly Calico’s fancy, aren’t you?’