“How’s that?” Smoker asked, playing along.
“He’s not half as thick as he looks!” She jumped up and grabbed him giving him a huge hug and a kiss on his forehead. After that, Ray was included in the business planning and he thrived on the activity. He employed a clerk to take and read notes for him and his memory became prodigious.
Relieved of the pressures of command, Scarlett reverted to being a nineteen-year-old girl. The only difference was she was independently wealthy, which of course, made her immensely attractive to men. She was having fun!
The family moved to Hull, but the smuggling operation stayed in Baytown. Smoker and Ray ran the shipping and smuggling businesses, leaving Scarlett to do her own thing.
Left to her own devices, she attended parties, shopped, travelled to London and attended more parties, generally having a good time. What she was doing, in fact, establishing a network of contacts both in trade and the aristocracy which she could leverage when she set up her own trading company. With that in mind, she started searching for a suitable property near Sheffield, which was smack bang in the centre of the country.
Her bodyguards were the talk of the party set. They were exotic, fierce, and handsome. Scarlett kept them with her but let them dress how they pleased and was surprised with their choices, which were simple but exquisitely cut to show off their physiques and skin colours to a tee. They were presented with ample opportunities to dally with attractive women but their loyalty to Scarlett never wavered. Emeka and Fawn set up house together- how that would work out when they went back to sea would have to be seen.
Elvira accompanied her everywhere, even to balls. If it became too busy or she didn’t like the environment, she would simply fly off and return to Scarlett some time later. It was a mystery how she always knew where she was and would appear out of the sky unexpectedly. Scarlett took to leaving her window open at all times so she could come and go as she pleased.
They moved the Fox to a shipyard in Hull to be refitted in drydock, have the latest cannon fitted, the hull reinforced, and a new concealed strong room built. The Santa Sabrina was sold off as Scarlett didn’t think it would make a good privateer. It made a handsome profit and joined the Royal Navy.
Steven and her officers agreed to stay on for the next expedition and almost all her crew said they would come back. Most would have spent their shares on women and drink and would be broke by the time they sailed again. They would still need to recruit more men but even the stories about them coming back with so many wounded and dead wouldn’t deter the fortune seekers who saw the wealth her men were squandering.
Absalom settled into the Browning family home and was treated very much as a member of the family, but he made it clear he would accompany Scarlett when she returned to the Caribbean. England was too cold for his old bones. He continued to teach Ray how to deal with his blindness and the two had become lifelong friends.
She made sure she paid her taxes and didn’t attract the revenue’s attention, made powerful friends including Sir Christopher Mings, who she visited at his home. He introduced her to other powerful and influential people. She was feted, courted, and groomed.
But at heart, she was a pirate and couldn’t wait to get back to sea.
Epilogue
The Fox was moored in the port of Hull at the Browning dock, her new lead-sheathed bottom showing just above the waterline. They invested in their own dock as that would give them more privacy for some of their shadier activities. They were building warehouses and a carting company was setting up a stables and repair shop for their carts at the back side of it.
A queue of men stood in the early September sun waiting to be interviewed at a desk set up at the bottom of the gang plank.
“Name?”
“Fred Mullins.”
“Rating?”
“What?”
“Have you sailed before?” (Exasperated)
“No, I’m a carter by trade and an ex-soldier.”
“Join that group over there, next!”
“Name?”
“Jethro.” In a distinctly Cornish accent.
“Surname?”
“Just Jethro.”
“Jethro Smith then. Nice tattoo,” nods to the anchor on his forearm, “you’ve sailed before?”
“Aye, topman.”
“Ship?”
No answer.
“Go aboard and report to the surgeon.”
“Aye Aye, Sir.”
Steven turned to look at Daniel, who was beside him taking names and making notes.
“Runner that one. Has Navy written all over him.”
“Perfect then,” Daniel smiled.
So it went on, landsmen, fishermen, ex-smugglers, and old salts all passed by. The sailors were sent aboard immediately to be given a short examination by the surgeon, who looked for disease, hernias, and other maladies that they didn’t want on ship. Most stayed, others were sent off. Once they had their complement of sailors, they looked for waisters and landsmen and once they had enough of them, men with a military background.
By mid-September, they had a fully manned ship and were ready to go. Scarlett was onboard and the last two things to be loaded would be fresh water, on its way in hoys, and powder, which would be at a loading dock further away from town.
Scarlett stood on the quarterdeck with Absalom, Elvira perched on the rail in front of her.
“They at least look like a crew,” Scarlett commented as the men got the Fox ready to sail. She looked around at her ship. It looked and felt eager to leave. She smiled, the next adventure was about to start.
Author’s notes
Who is Scarlett? Well, the answer is she is the great times five grandmother of Caroline, Marty’s wife in The Dorset Boy series. I had just finished The Trojan Horse when I started thinking about where Caroline got her spunky genes and decided that would make a good story in itself.
A woman captain? You may ask. Why not, I answer. There were a surprising number of women pirates in history.
In the 16th century: Grace O’Malley, “The Sea Queen of Connaught”, Sayyida al Hurra, one of the most important figures of the Islamic West and Mary Wolverston.
In the 17th century: Elizabetha Patrickson, Jacquotte Delahay (known as “Back From The Dead Red” because of her red hair and for faking her own death), Christina Anna Skytte, and Anne Dieu-le-Veut.
In the 18th century: Anne Bonny and Mary Read
They were mean, nasty and if anything, more brutal than the men. If Scarlett is based on any of them it would be Anne Dieu-le-Veut but she is largely a product of my imagination.
For the literary inclined, the saying, “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” actually first appeared in the 1687 play The Mourning Bride by William Congreve. A bit later than when this book is set but it fits, so I took the liberty.
Condoms had been around since at least the time of Charles I and were an accepted device for birth control and disease prevention at the time. Pigs bladder was a common fabric and they were tied on with a nice ribbon.
As to the bank set up by Thomas Smith it was written in J. Leighton Boyce, Smith's the Bankers 1658–1958(1958).
"In developing his banking business on the twin foundations of mercery and revenue remittance, he was anticipating by the better part of a century the technique employed by the founders of a number of the more successful eighteenth-century country banks."
The ships, as far as I can make them, are authentic to the time, and for those who are confused why a two decker gets called a frigate in the 17th century- anything with forty guns or less was called a frigate. It’s confusing as frigates in later times were classified as 5th or 6th rates and were single decked in the main.
The Carib tribes who gave their name to the Caribbean are largely gone now although some do survive on a few of the islands. Researching them was interesting but I made up a lot of the spiritual stuff, so please don’t quote me. I felt that it added some extra colour to the story and El
vira and the Pelican will continue to feature in future stories. I hope you enjoyed this one and are looking forward to the next in this series.
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Scarlett Page 24