The Noble Pirates

by Rima Jean

  It had worked. I beamed excitedly, and then Howel looked up and saw me.

  “Sabrina, in me cabin. Now,” he said firmly, his eyes blazing.

  Oh, shit. He was mad. I followed the men into the cabin, and before the door was shut Howel was yelling at us. “Are you two going behind me back and plotting? Do you seek to undermine me plans?”

  Walter spoke quickly, just as forcefully. “Davies, we have faith in you, don’t doubt it. But Sabrina wanted additional assurance, something to sway the governor toward our side if he seemed dubious of our identity. Admit as much: When the sentry whispered to the governor that there was a woman on board the ship, we had ‘im. It was the push he needed.”

  “Me plan would have worked without involving Sabrina,” Howel growled. “I would have had ‘im regardless.” He turned on me. “You had no right to go behind me back, dammit.”

  “I am part of this crew,” I cried. “I have a right – ”

  “I am captain of this ship,” Howel retorted, stepping close to me and grabbing me by the wrist. “I can have you hung from a spar by your pretty little feet.”

  It had been a while since we’d touched, and a spark ignited as his hand closed around my wrist. I caught my breath and looked into his face, and I could see he felt it too. He withdrew his hand as if he’d been burned, and returned my gaze in silent anguish. He was still dressed as the gentleman, in the gorgeous maroon coat, the large tricorn hat. But unlike the time he’d dressed as the merchant captain in the Cape Verde Islands, there was something not quite right about him now: the clothes were of highest quality, but the man who wore them was darkly burnt from the sun, even more muscled than before, and had a wild, menacing look in his blue eyes.

  The man who wore them looked like an outlaw.

  “I hope, for your sake, that the governor continues to accept our story,” Howel said to me, taking a step away, “or you will hang for piracy like the rest of us.”

  “Is that what you’re worried about?” I said. “I already know that. I am one of you, Howel, whether you like it or not.”

  “We have been invited to dine with him, you, me, and Walter,” Howel said, ignoring my last comment. “I told him I would make sure the ship was properly anchored and then return with a few bottles of liquor – and me lovely wife. So we haven’t much time.”

  Walter called the crew to the deck so that Howel could tell them his plan. I looked at the pirate faces around me, the rage and hunger in them. They gazed up at their leader in awe, in reverence, ready and willing to do his bidding.

  Howel laid out his plan: “While I was chatting with the kind governor this afternoon, I noted the patrol of the sentries, where the guns and small arms be kept, the number of guards in the guardhouse. With a bit of cunning, we can take Gambia Castle. Walter, Sabrina and I will return to the fort, armed secretly with pistols, and dine with the governor. Twelve of you – Walter, decide which of ‘em would be best suited for the job – will come with us, pistols hidden, and befriend the guards in the guardroom. You will wait for me signal – a single gunshot from the window of the governor’s residence – and then take the guards by gunpoint and open the fort’s gates.” Howel paused, raking his fingernails against his chin, where the hair was beginning to grow back. “The rest of you will wait here, armed and ready, and when the flag is struck, make haste to the shore and storm the fort.” He smiled. “It should all be done in less than half a glass.”

  An approving murmur rose from the crew, and Walter began choosing twelve men to come ashore with us. We were each given two pistols, and I hid mine in my sash, beneath my gown.

  Here we go, I thought. Don’t screw this up, Sabrina.

  I was so nervous I thought I might faint as I watched the men load the bottles of wine and rum onto the dinghy. Then it was time to climb into the boat, and Howel hopped deftly from the waist, looking up at me and holding his hand out to me solemnly. In the twilight, Howel’s face was dark and his eyes bright, framed by a serious brow. As I struggled to get down in my skirts, he lifted me easily and set me down in the boat, against him. “Let’s be off,” he said, indicating stiffly that I should sit.

  We were received graciously by the governor’s men and brought to his apartments within the fort, which were illuminated by the soft glow of candles. The governor himself was a broad-chested man with an aquiline nose and the longest eyebrow hairs I have ever seen. It made him look something like a demon, the way the hairs curled upward onto his forehead. On a number of occasions, I felt his eyes on me, studying me. The guy was English, and I was terrified he would wonder about my pathetic accent. In my mind’s eye, I saw Fabia and her ladies, sitting straight-backed in their chairs, fluttering their fans, not speaking. It was all I had to do. I could do that much, right?

  “Governor Orfeur, we bring gifts,” Howel said, his smile seeming utterly genuine, his face honest and open as he held two of the bottles of liquor in his hands. He turned and gestured for the rest of it to be brought before the governor.

  “Ah!” the governor sighed, clearly delighted by his new acquisition of liquor. “I cannot tell you, Captain Reed, how welcome this gift is! I have been without a fine claret or rum for months…” He took a bottle of rum from Howel, cradling it lovingly in his hands. “I will open this bottle and have a punch made, in honor of your visit, while we wait for dinner to be served,” he said.

  “The honor, Your Excellency,” Howel replied gallantly, flashing a dazzling smile, “is all ours.”

  We were seated in the parlor, where Howel and the governor made small talk about London, Liverpool, the slave trade… The only other of Howel’s crew who had come to the governor’s apartments with Howel, Walter and me was the coxswain, a young man named Archie, who had entered under the guise of helping deliver the gift of liquor. His real job was to make sure most of the armed guards had left the apartments, and to notify Howel that the rooms had been cleared of all but the governor himself, his servants, and the two guards who stood unobtrusively along the wall.

  I waited, listening to the small talk of the men, stock-still save the pounding of my heart, which I swore everyone could hear. Howel was calm, animated, sitting casually in his chair, one leg stretched before him. There wasn’t the slightest hint of anxiety in his face, not a stutter of uncertainty in his speech. He drank his punch, commenting on its flavor, on the superiority of the rum from Barbados… Howel was a damn good liar, and I wasn’t sure, as far as I was concerned, that was a good thing…

  Archie peeked into the room and met Howel’s eyes, giving his pirate captain a brisk nod and disappearing. Howel didn’t move, didn’t alter his relaxed position in his chair. He continued to chat with the governor about the dominance of England over France and Spain, slipping his hand casually into his waistcoat as though he were reaching for a pipe or a tin of tobacco. He pulled a pistol from his coat, still talking, cocked it, and leveled it at the governor. It was done so coolly, so offhandedly, that the governor stared at the pistol, uncomprehending and befuddled, for a few moments. Even the guards stood quietly, unaware of what was happening for several seconds. With a start, they grabbed clumsily for their muskets, but Walter and Archie had already drawn their pistols, covering them.

  Howel still sat comfortably in his chair, a pleasant smile on his face. “Your Excellency, as much as I’d hate to ruin this fine evening, I must inform you that you are now the prisoner of the pirate Howel Davis.”

  The governor, aghast, his mouth open, his eyes like saucers, managed to stammer, “Who is Howel Davis?”

  Howel sat up slowly, lackadaisically, still smiling. “I am.”

  The governor looked at me and any remaining confusion he had quickly dissipated as I, too, drew my pistol from my gown. His eyes were fixed on me in horror, and I could see what he was thinking: The woman is a pirate!

  “‘Twould be in your favor, Governor Orfeur, to surrender immediately – your house, the fort, and everything in it,” Howel said, standing as Archie, Walter and I took
the muskets from the guards. Howel then went to the window and leaned out, holding his pistol up in the humid night air and firing.

  The fight was out of our hands, now: Howel could only hope he hadn’t missed anything important in his quick study of the fort and in instructing his men, and that they had done as they were ordered. As the seven of us waited there, the governor as white as a sheet, Howel spoke softly, warmly, about politics, continuing the conversation he had been having with the governor prior to holding him at gunpoint. Once in a while he paused, his head cocked, listening for gunfire.

  We heard nothing – until a great cry went up, and several pirates burst into the room. “ ‘Tis done, Davies! Gambia Castle is ours!” one of them cried.

  The soldiers were locked away, their weapons seized, in the guardroom; the batteries were under pirate control; the fort gates were opened and the flag lowered; reinforcements from the King James had arrived and consolidated control over the garrison.

  Howel turned to the governor and grinned brilliantly. “D’you see how civil that was, Your Excellency? The fort is taken without a single man lost, without a single shot fired – except, of course, for me signal.” He dropped the English accent and let his working-class Welsh one take its place. Now, as he stood before his captive with his pistol in hand, he looked very much like an ostentatiously-dressed pirate captain.

  The governor must have wondered how he hadn’t seen it from the beginning.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I could hear the laughter of the four pirates manning the cannon aboard the King James as they prepared to fire it again, swabbing out the muzzle and packing in a charge of gunpowder. The ship and fort, now under pirate control, were taking turns firing salutes to each other as the loot was brought aboard the vessel.

  There wasn’t as much treasure in Gambia Castle as Howel had hoped – most of the year’s earnings had already been sent back to England – three thousand pounds in gold, as well as plenty of goods, was all that was left. This wasn’t mere pocket change, but not as much as the pirates thought they would find, considering the risk they had taken. If Howel felt disappointment, he showed none of it, lavishing his crew with praise and reward, smiling readily, and treating his captives as though they were guests in his home. Before taking the fort, Howel had captured a small sloop that had been anchored in the roadstead near the King James to ensure that none of its crew alerted the fort to the presence of pirates; now, he restored the sloop back to its captain and crew, and gave them some valuable goods as compensation for the trouble he had caused them.

  I stood on the quarterdeck, leaning against the guard rail, watching as the pirates fired their salutes to each other and loaded the last of the plunder onto the King James. Howel, no longer the extravagantly-dressed merchant captain, leaped from the ship to the boat to help unload the booty, the sleeves of his linen shirt rolled up, his feet bare, and a kerchief around his neck. I wanted to make peace with him, to tell him that he was angry about nothing, because I missed him something fierce. I longed to feel his embrace, to hear his heart beat steadily as I lay my head on his chest. My efforts, however, were thwarted by the fact that Howel had been a busy man, without a moment’s rest, since capturing the fort. It had been several days, and yet I swore I hadn’t seen him sleep for more than an hour at a time.

  I was contemplating approaching him later that afternoon when two ships, apparently sailing together, were spotted in the offing, in full sail. This jolted the pirates into action. They did not know what the ships were, but it hardly mattered. The quarters were quickly cleared, the big guns were brought out, and the black flag was hoisted to the masthead. The pirates armed themselves and crowded onto the deck of the King James, waiting for the ships to draw nearer.

  As I was scrambling to put on my baldric, Howel took a moment to pull me aside and say firmly, “If you are intent on fighting, then I insist that you remain dressed as a boy. Who knows what kind of men be aboard these ships? ‘Tis better that they not know your sex.” I complied as Howel instructed his crew to keep my identity a secret. While there were no guarantees that they would, Howel was held in high enough esteem by his men that it was possible they’d keep their mouths shut – for a little while, at least.

  The ships were close now, and one of them fired at us. The waves before the King James burst as the cannon ball landed, just shy of the bow. Howel peered through his spyglass as one of his men in the shrouds cried, “They’ve raised the Jolly Roger! They’re both rovers, Cap’n!”

  Howel signaled to his gunners and one cried, “Fire in the hole!” The approaching ships must have then recognized that we were also pirates, and they did not fire again. They came alongside the King James and hailed us.

  “Ho! Whence came you?”

  Howel shouted, “From the sea!”

  “Are you o’ the Brotherhood?”

  “Aye, and we welcome you as brothers!”

  Thus began the precarious alliance between Howel Davis, Oliver “La Buse” Levasseur, and Thomas Cocklyn.

  And I hated every moment of it.

  Levasseur and Cocklyn were real thugs, men who delighted in the violence of piracy, who created violence where there need be none. Levasseur was a well-educated Frenchman who had been a privateer for France before turning pirate. He was of medium build, with a large nose, thick lips, and a long, jagged scar that ran across one eye. The eyelid of the injured eye was permanently narrowed to a slit, obscuring his sight. He wore gold rings in his ears (supposedly to improve his vision), and had a sleazy demeanor about him that made me shudder. His nickname was “La Buse,” which means “the buzzard” in French. Levasseur’s contemporaries had meant this as a compliment, since “buzzard” meant “hawk” in those days. I, however, thought the modern definition – “vulture” – to be far more appropriate. The man looked like a vulture. Cocklyn, while being just as violent and sleazy, was simply an ignorant brute, who on dry land would have been a pickpocket and petty thief. Cocklyn was short and stocky, and just all-around ugly. Both pirates had been active in the Bahamas and had been chased away by Woodes Rogers, just like Howel Davis and Edward England.

  The two pirates were thoroughly impressed with Howel’s cleverness in capturing Gambia Castle, and asked him to cruise down the African coast with them. Howel did not know at this point what sort of men Levasseur and Cocklyn were, although he must have had his suspicions. When Walter Kennedy and the crew thought this a good idea, Howel decided to go along with them, and this confederacy among the three pirate captains was formed, with Howel as commodore.

  My time with him had been limited before, and now that I was a cabin boy again – and one that was too “pretty” to risk catching the eye of either Levasseur or Cocklyn – I saw him only as often as the rest of the crew, when he was commanding. I watched him do so with ease, but something in his demeanor revealed an undercurrent of… doubt. During the meetings with the crew, Walter Kennedy, as spokesman for the men of the King James, was clearly happy to be joined with two other powerful pirate companies. Howel was fairly terse during these meetings, which was very unlike him; he did not jest and make the men laugh as he normally did, but sat quietly, biting the inside of his lip, his face dark with apprehension.

  Howel was not like these other pirates. He knew it, I knew it. And he could not meet my eyes on account of it.

  We sailed to Sierra Leone, where the three captains intended to capture the Royal African Company fort there, on Bunce Island, just at the mouth of the Sierra Leone River. This time, there was no patience for Howel’s game of deceit. The pirates had strength in their numbers, and brute force would get them what they wanted. They attacked the fort in Levasseur’s brigantine, exchanging musket and cannon fire. I stayed on the King James, anxiously listening to the explosions in the distance, my eyes never leaving the pirate ship.

  The exchange went on for hours, and while the fort sustained major damage by the pirates, the brigantine’s rigging was also badly mangled. The two confederate p
irate ships – Howel’s and Cocklyn’s – swept in at the last moment to aid in the attack. The pirates stood on the deck, pounding their weapons against the gunwales, crazed by their desire to kill. I joined in too, screaming at the top of my lungs, slamming the wood planks with my cutlass. When the company soldiers saw the number of pirates they were up against, they abandoned the fort, leaving it to the rovers.

  So the ships anchored and their men swarmed the fort, and for the first time since arriving in the eighteenth century, I saw pirates behave the way I had always imagined they would – like animals. Levasseur and Cocklyn’s crews were not like Howel’s, and the wanton destruction they caused took me by surprise. Furniture was smashed and burned, paintings shredded by blades, crystal and ceramic shattered as they were flung against walls. If any soldiers remained to defend the fort, there was no doubt in my mind that they would meet a gruesome, prolonged death at the hands of these rovers.

  I suddenly realized how so very lucky I was to have ended up with pirates like Edward England and Howel Davis. They really were the exceptions to the rule.

  I watched as two pirates doused each other in wine they’d found and smashed the bottles against a table. I instinctively crouched against a wall of the fort, suddenly terrified of these men who were supposed to be my comrades, when a hand seized me and lifted me to my feet. Howel stood before me, drenched in sweat, his face darkened by a film of gunpowder. Beads of perspiration trickled down his face, leaving trails of clear skin in the black soot. He held his cutlass in his hand, and he was breathing hard.

  “Sabrina!” he yelled, enraged. “Get you back to the ship this very instant!” When I didn’t respond immediately, he lifted me and tossed me over his shoulder, marching out of the fort with purpose. I did not resist, for once.

  He dropped me in a boat on the shore, and commanded two of Levasseur’s men to take me back to the King James. Without looking at me again, he rushed back to the fort, walking briskly in the sand. I watched him go as one of the men pulled the dinghy into the waves, waist-high in the surf.