I knew what he was doing now, and could only watch in admiration and hope as he continued to do it, making the foot more and more greasy until it was slippery enough to …
Try. He looked at me, silenced any encouragement before it even left my lips, then twisted and pulled at the same time.
He would have yelled in pain if he wasn’t concentrating on keeping so quiet, and his foot when it came free of the leg iron was covered in a revolting mixture of blood and spit and oatmeal. But it was free. And neither of us wanted to eat the oatmeal anyway.
He glanced back up the deck towards the ladder and both of us steeled ourselves against the appearance of a guard, then he began working at the other foot and was soon free. Crouched on the wood with his head cocked, he listened as footsteps from above us seemed to move towards the hatch, then, thankfully, moved away again.
There was a moment in which I wondered if he might simply leave me there. After all, we were strangers; he owed me nothing. Why should he waste time and endanger his own bid for freedom by helping me?
But in the next instant, after a moment’s hesitation – perhaps he wondered himself about the wisdom of helping me – he scrambled over towards me, checked the shackles, then hurried over to an unseen section of the deck behind me, returning with keys.
His name was Adewalé he told me as he opened the shackles. I thanked him quietly, rubbing my ankles and whispering, ‘Now, what’s your plan, mate?’
‘Steal a ship,’ he said simply.
I liked the sound of that. First, though, I retrieved my robes and hidden blade, as well as adding a pair of leather braces and a leather jacket to my ensemble.
Meanwhile my new friend Adewalé was using the keys to release the other prisoners. I snatched another set from a nail on the wall and joined him.
‘There’s a catch to this favour,’ I told the first man I came to as my fingers worked at the key in his restraints, ‘you’re sailing with me.’
‘I’d follow you to hell for this, mate …’
Now there were more men standing on the deck and free of shackles than there were still restrained, and perhaps those above had heard something because suddenly the hatch was flung open and the first of the guards thundered down the steps with his sword drawn.
‘Hey,’ he said, but ‘hey’ turned out to be his final word. I’d already fitted my hidden blade (and had a moment’s reflection that though I had only been wearing it for such a short space of time, it still felt somehow familiar to me, almost as though I had been wearing it for years) and with a flick of my forearm had engaged the blade, then stepped forward and introduced the blade to the guard, driving it deep into his sternum.
It wasn’t exactly stealthy or subtle. And I stabbed him so hard that the blade punctured his back and pinned him to the steps until I wrenched him free. Now I saw the boots of a second soldier and the tip of his sword as reinforcements arrived and for this one I didn’t wait. Backhanded I sliced the blade just below his knees and he screamed and toppled, losing his sword, losing his balance, one of his lower legs cut to the bone and pumping blood to the deck as he joined his mate on the wood.
By now it was a full-scale mutiny, and the freed men ran to the piles of confiscated goods and liberated their own gear, arming themselves with cutlasses and pistols, pulling boots on. I saw squabbles breaking out – already! – over whose items were whose, but there was no time to play arbitrator. A clip around the ear was what it took and then our new team was ready to go into action. Above us we heard the sound of rushing feet and panicked shouting in Spanish as the guards prepared themselves for the uprising.
Just then, something else. The ship suddenly rocked by what I knew was a gust of wind. Across the deck I caught Adewalé’s eye and he mouthed something to me. One word: hurricane.
Again it was as though the ship had been rammed as a second gust of wind hit us. Now time was against us; the battle needed to be won fast, and we had to take our own ship, because these winds, furious as they were, were nothing – nothing – compared to the force of a full-scale hurricane.
You could time its arrival by counting the delay between the first gusts. You could see the direction the hurricane was coming from. And if you were an experienced seaman, which I was by now, then you could use the hurricane to your advantage. So as long as we set sail soon, we could outrun any pursuers.
Yes, that was it. The terror of the hurricane had been replaced by the notion that we could make it work in our favour. Use the hurricane; outrun the Spanish. A few words in Adewalé’s ear and my new friend nodded and began to spread news of the plan throughout the rest of the men.
They would be expecting us out of the main hatch. They’d be expecting an uncoordinated, haphazard attack through the hatch of the quarterdeck.
So let’s make them pay for underestimating us.
Directing some of the men to stay near the foot of the steps and make the noise of men preparing to attack, I led the rest to the stern, where we broke through into the infirmary, then stealthily climbed the steps to the galley.
In the next instant we poured out on to the main deck, and sure enough the Spanish soldiers stood unaware, their backs turned and their muskets trained on the quarterdeck hatch.
They were idiots. They were careless idiots, who had not only turned their backs on us, but brought muskets to a sword fight, and they paid for it with steel in their guts, and across their throats, and for a moment the quarterdeck was a battlefield as we ruthlessly pressed home the advantage our surprise attack gave us, until at our feet lay dead or dying Spaniards, while the last of them threw themselves overboard in panic, and we stood and caught our breath.
Though the sails were furled the ship rocked as it was punched by another gust of wind. The hurricane would be upon us any minute. Now on other ships along the harbour belonging to the treasure fleet we saw soldiers handing out pikes and muskets as they began to prepare themselves for our attack.
We needed a faster ship than this one and Adewalé had his eye on one, already leading a group of our men across the gangplank and to the quay. Soldiers on the harbour died by their blade. There was a crack of muskets and some of our men fell, but already we were rushing the next galleon beside us, a beautiful-looking ship – the ship I was soon to make my own.
And then we were up on it just as the sky darkened, a suitable backdrop for the battle and a terrifying augur of what was to come.
Wind whipped at us. Growing stronger now, hammering us in repeated gusts. The Spanish soldiers, you could see they were in disarray, as terrified of the oncoming storm as they were of the escaped prisoners, unable to avoid the onslaught of either.
The battle was bloody and vicious, but over quickly and the galleon was ours. For a moment I wondered if Adewalé would want to assume command; indeed he had every right to do so – this man had not only set me free, but led the charge that helped win us this boat. And if he did decide to captain his own ship I would have to respect that, find my own command and go my own way.
But no. Adewalé wanted to sail with me as quartermaster.
And I was more than grateful, not only that he was willing to serve under me, but that he chose not to take his skills elsewhere. In Adewalé I had a loyal quartermaster, a man who would never rise up against me in mutiny, provided I was a just and fair captain.
I knew that then at the beginning of our friendship, just as I know it now with all those years of comradeship between us.
(Ah, but the Observatory. The Observatory came between us.)
We set sail just as the masts unfurled and the first tendrils of the coming storm fattened our sails. Crosswinds battered us as we left the harbour and I glanced behind from my place at the tiller to see the remaining ships of the treasure fleet being assaulted by wind and rain. At first their masts swung crazily from side to side like out-of-control pendulums, then they were clashing as the storm hit. Without ready sails they were sitting ducks and it gladdened my heart to see them knocked into match
wood by the oncoming hurricane.
Now the air seemed to grow colder and colder around us. Above I saw clouds gathering, scudding fast across the sky and blocking out the sun. Next we were lashed with wind and rain and sea spray. Around us the waves seemed to grow and grow: towering mountains of water with foaming peaks, every one of them about to drown us, tossing us from one huge canyon of sea to another.
The poultry were washed overboard. Men hung on to cabin doors. I heard screams as unlucky deckhands were snatched off the ship. The galley fire was extinguished. All hatches and cabin doors battened down. Only the bravest and most skilful men dared scale the ratlines to try to manage the canvas.
The foremast snapped and I feared for the main mast and the mizzen, but they held, thank God, and I gave silent praise for this fast, plucky ship that had been brought to us by fate.
The sky was a patchwork of black cloud that every now and then parted to allow rays of sunshine through, as if the sun was being kept prisoner behind them, as though the weather was taunting us. Still we kept going, with three men at the tiller and men hanging on to the rigging as though trying to fly a huge, abominable kite, desperately trying to keep us ahead of the storm. To slow down would be to surrender to it. To surrender to it would be to die.
But we didn’t die, not that day. Behind us the rest of the treasure fleet was smashed at port, but the one ship – just the one ship containing the freed prisoners – managed to escape and the men we had – a skeleton crew – pledged their allegiance to myself and Adewalé, and agreed with my proposal that we set sail immediately for Nassau. At last I was going back to Nassau, to see Edward and Benjamin, and rejoin the republic of pirates I had missed so much.
I was looking forward to showing them my ship. My new ship. I had christened it the Jackdaw.
33
September, 1715
‘You’ve named your new brig after a poxy bird?’
Any other man and I would have drawn my pistol or perhaps engaged my hidden blade and made him eat his words. But this was Edward Thatch. Not Blackbeard yet, oh no. He had yet to grow the face fur, which would give him his more famous moniker, but he still had all that braggadocio that was as much his trademark as the plaited beard and the lit fuses he would wear in it.
Benjamin was there too. He sat with Edward beneath the sailcloth awnings of the Old Avery, a tavern on the hill overlooking the harbour, one of my very favourite places in the world, and my first port of call on entering Nassau – a Nassau I was pleased to see had hardly changed: the stretch of purest blue ocean across the harbour, the captured ships that littered the shores, English flags flying from their masts, the palms, the shanty houses, the huge Fort Nassau that towered above us, its death’s head flag flapping in the easterly breeze. I tell a lie; it had changed. It was busier than it had been before. Some nine hundred men and women now made it their base, I discovered – seven hundred of them pirates. And that included Edward and Benjamin – planning raids and drinking, drinking and planning raids, six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Nearby was another pirate I recognized as James Kidd, who some said was the son of William Kidd, who sat by himself. But for now my attention went to my old shipmates, who both rose to greet me. Here, there were none of the formalities, the insistence on politeness and decorum that shackles the rest of society. No, I was given a proper pirate greeting, embraced in huge hugs by Benjamin and Edward, the pirate scourges of the Bahamas, but really soft old bears, with grateful tears in their eyes to see an old friend.
‘By God, you’re a sight for salty eyes,’ said Benjamin, ‘come you in and have a drink.’
Edward gave Adewalé a look. ‘Ahoy, Kenway. Who’s this?’
‘Adewalé, the Jackdaw’s quartermaster.’
And that was when Edward made his crack about the Jackdaw’s name. Neither of them had yet made mention of the robes I wore, but perhaps I had that pleasure to come. Certainly there was a moment, after the greeting, when they both gave me long, hard looks and I wondered whether those looks were as much to gawp at my clothes as to see the change in me, because the fact was that I had been but a boy when I first met them, but I had grown from a feckless, arrogant teenager, an errant son, a lovelorn but unreliable husband, into something else – a man scarred and made hard by battle, who was not quite so careless with his feelings, not so liberal with his emotions, a cold man in many respects, a man whose true passions were buried deep.
Perhaps they saw that, my two old friends. Perhaps they took note of that hardening of boy to man.
I was looking for men to crew my ship, I told them.
‘Well,’ said Edward, ‘there’s scores of capable men about, but use caution. A shipload of the king’s sailors showed up a fortnight back, causing trouble and knocking about like they own the place.’
I didn’t like the sound of that. Was it Woodes Rogers’s work? Had he sent out an advance party? Or was there another explanation? The Templars. Looking for me maybe? Looking for something else? The stakes were high now. I should know. I’d done more than my fair share to increase them.
As it turned out, in recruiting more men for my ship I was to learn a little more about the presence of the English in the Bahamas. Men that Adewalé and I spoke to talked of seeing soldiers prancing around in the king’s colours. The British wanted us out, well, of course they did, we were a thorn in His Majesty’s side, a dirty great stain on the red ensign, but it felt as though there was, if anything, an increase in British interest. So it was that when I next met Edward, Ben and, joining us, James Kidd in the Old Avery, I was extra wary of unfamiliar faces and sure to speak out of earshot.
‘Have you ever heard of a place called the Observatory?’ I asked them.
I’d been thinking about it a lot. At its mention there was a flicker in James Kidd’s eyes. I shot him a glance. He was young – about nineteen or twenty years old, I’d say, so a bit younger than I was, and, just like me, a bit of a hothead. So as Thatch and Hornigold shook their heads, it was he who spoke up.
‘Aye,’ he said, ‘I’ve heard of the Observatory. An old legend, like Eldorado or the Fountain of Youth.’
I ushered them to a table where, with a look left and right, a check to see if any of the king’s spies were in residence, I smoothed out the picture purloined from Torres’s mansion and placed it on the table. A bit dog-eared but, still, there in front of us was an image of the Observatory and all three men looked at it with interest, some with more interest than others. Some who pretended they were less interested than they really were.
‘What have you heard?’ I asked James.
‘It is meant to be a temple or a tomb. Hiding a treasure of some kind.’
‘Ah, rocks,’ bellowed Edward. ‘It’s fairy stories you prefer to gold, is it?’
Edward – he’d have no part in trying to find the Observatory. I knew that from the start. Hell, I’d known that before I’d even opened my mouth. He wanted treasure he could weigh on scales; chests filled with pieces of eight, rusted with the blood of their previous owners.
‘It’s worth more than gold, Thatch. Ten thousand times above what we could pull off any Spanish ship.’
Ben was looking doubtful, too – matter-of-fact, the only ear I seemed to have belonged to James Kidd.
‘Robbing the king to pay his paupers is how we earn our keep here, lad,’ said Ben with an admonishing tone. He jabbed a grimy weather-beaten finger at my stolen picture. ‘That ain’t a fortune; it’s a fantasy.’
‘But this is a prize that could set us up for life.’
My two old shipmates, they were salt of the earth, the two very best men I’d ever sailed with, but I cursed their lack of vision. They spoke of two or three scores to set us up for months, but I had in mind a prize that would set us up for life! Not to mention making me a gentleman: a man of property and promise.
‘Are you still dreaming on that strumpet back in Bristol?’ jeered Ben when I mentioned Caroline. ‘Jaysus, let go, lad. Nassau is the p
lace to be, not England.’
And for a while I tried to convince myself that it was true, and that they were right, and that I should set my sights on more tangible treasures. During days spent drinking, planning raids, then carrying out those raids, drinking to their success and planning more raids, I had plenty of time to reflect on the irony of it all, how standing around the table with my Templar ‘friends’ I’d thought them deluded and silly and yearned for my pirate mates with their straight talking and free thinking. Yet here on Nassau, I found men who had closed their minds, despite appearances to the contrary, despite what they said and even the symbolism of the black flag, with which I was presented one afternoon when the sun beat down upon us.
‘We fly no colours out here, but praise the lack of them,’ said Edward as we looked out towards the Jackdaw, where Adewalé stood by the flagpole. ‘So let the black flag signal nothing but your allegiance to man’s natural freedoms. This one is yours. Fly it proud.’
The flag flapped gently in the wind and I was proud – I was proud. I was proud of what it represented and of my part in it. I had helped build something worthwhile, struck a blow for freedom – true freedom. And yet there was still a hole deep in my heart, where I thought of Caroline, and of the wrong that had been done to me. You see, my sweet, I had returned to Nassau a different man. Those passions buried deep? I was waiting for the day to act upon them.
In the meantime there were other things to think about, specifically the threat to our way of life. One night found us sitting around a campfire on the beach, our ships, the Benjamin and the Jackdaw, moored offshore.
‘Here’s to a pirate republic, lads,’ said Thatch. ‘We are prosperous and free, and out of the reach of the king’s clergy and debt collectors.’
‘Near five hundred men now pledge their allegiance to the brethren of the coast in Nassau. Not a bad number,’ said James Kidd. He cast me a brief sideways glance I pretended not to notice.
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