Pistoleer: Pirates

by Smith, Skye

  Like the others, Karl had a dragon under his sash, and a long knife, but his other weapon, his fighting weapon, was the hulk of bronze that he was struggling to lift it off its mount on the gunnels .... the swivel gun. At Warwick’s move to help him, he grunted, "Keep yer hands clear. She's seventy pounds of brass and the bitch likes to pinch fingers." Together they freed the giant blunderbuss and then Karl heaved it up onto a shoulder and carried it off the ship to find a pack horse. Another of the crew came and grabbed a trunk near the swivel fixture and grunted as he heaved it around to follow Karl.

  Warwick sorely wanted to go with these men, for this had all the trappings of the adventures of his youth. He went to find Daniel to ask again. The man was easy to spot in the gathering troop on the rickety quay for he was wearing a costly navy-blue cloak with a matching cavalier's hat complete with white plume. It was Blake who held him back from leaving the ship and told him not to bother trying to change Danny's mind.

  Together they watched the shore party start out uphill, with big, deaf Karl leading the old packhorse that carried the ordinance. Tom Weston was with them. "Oye, if Weston can go, why can't I?" Warwick complained to Blake.

  "Because,” was the only response.

  * * * * *

  Four scouts had been sent off ahead. Two to the top of the ridge to pass signals to the ship, and the other two to scout the path. One of the second two was waiting for them just over the ridge. His mate would be hidden somewhere near to Strode's farmhouse and watching. "We're too late,” the scout reported. "Unfortunately, we had no trouble finding the right farm house because there was a coach and a dozen saddled horses in the yard. The only good news is that there is a bridle path leading to the farmhouse through the cover of an orchard. We should be able to get within hailing range before we are seen."

  "And the main cartway to the farm house?" Daniel asked.

  "Comes the other way 'cause it comes from the village."

  "Right. Then I will go alone,” Daniel said, planning as he spoke. "I will circle around to the cartway and approach the house as if from the village. I'll keep them watching me while you lot sneak up through the orchard. Don't leave good cover until you here my voice." With that Daniel struck out alone on a likely looking animal track that he hoped would take him around to the cartway. After one step he spun around and hissed, "And try not to kill anyone, but if you must kill, then make sure that Heath is taken down."

  Strode's farm house was just outside a neat looking little village with a small church. There was no one to be seen. That made sense. The villagers would have seen the carriage and the riders arrive, and would be hiding in their houses with the shutters barred. He turned onto the cartway and straightened his shoulders and his hat and strode proudly towards the farm house. The house was surrounded by musketeers, and there were two men standing beside the coach. As he entered the yard, one of the musketeers was pounding on the front door.

  "Yo!" Daniel yelled out a few times, not just to gain the attention of the musketeers, but to signal his own men that he was in position. "Yo I say. Why are you pounding that door down?" With a flourish of his cloak, he raised his arm and hand and ordered that they desist.

  "Be gone good stranger,” one of the men beside the couch called out. "We are on the King's business and it is of no concern to thee."

  Perfect, Daniel thought. He now had everyone's undivided attention. His crew could now sneak closer in safety. "It is the business of every good Englishman to uphold the King's laws. You may not arrest an Englishman behind his own hearth, so leave his property and wait until he surrenders himself."

  "We are on the King's business so it is allowed,” said the older man who Daniel recognized from the Fens as Robert Heath. "I am Lord Justice Heath and I will not be lectured about the law by the likes of thee."

  All this time Daniel had continued to walk in order to close the distance between him and the two lordly types standing beside the carriage. "Then where is the King's Sheriff of Devon? You sir, who are you? Identify yourself."

  "I am Sir Ralph Hopton, Knight of the Bath and the member of parliament for Wells. And who might you be?"

  "I am the Deputy Sheriff of Devon, and I have come to arrest Sir Robert Heath on charges of conspiracy to commit treason. The Strafford case, you know." Daniel felt a wonderful satisfaction in saying such an audacious lie, for his words took the breath away from these two knights. It was the grand hat and cloak, of course, which made his lie ever so slightly believable. He heard the familiar call of a marsh bird that had no business being at this farm, and knew that his crew were in position.

  "That is not possible,” Hopton was quick to say. "There was no such order before the House before it recessed."

  "And that is not my problem,” Daniel replied, walking even closer. This Hopton was a smart one, and he had the bearing of a military man, so these musketeers were obviously his men. "My task is only to deliver the good knight to the Tower. Do you wish to see the warrant." He reached inside his cloak for the scroll of paper which was actually Blake's hastily drawn map of this area, and held it forward towards Hopton.

  Hopton, as smart as he was, took the bait and stepped within Daniel's reach. In one fluid motion Daniel gripped the hilt of his dagger with one hand, and Hopton's arm with the other and used his grip on the arm to swing around behind the man while he lifted his dagger to the man's throat. "Tell your men to freeze where they stand and to drop their weapons," he hissed into Hopton's ear.

  Hopton was smart enough and cool enough to realize that this was a temporary setback, for one man must eventually lose out to the reason of force of numbers. He called out to his men to make no trouble and to set their muskets aside, and they did as he asked. Once that was done, Daniel made the piercing shriek of a hunting hawk, and his crew ran forward with dragons drawn and surprised the musketeers.

  The musketeers on the orchard side of the house were pushed into a group neatly and swiftly, but those on the village side had enough warning to grab up their muskets and dive into cover behind the low unmortared stone wall that formed one side of the farmyard. Hopton used the confusion to bash his head backwards against Daniels face and when the dagger dropped away from his throat, he took two skips and a hop and joined his men behind the wall. He was definitely an experienced fighter.

  Weston was not one of the crew who had run forward to disarm the musketeers. He had held back with Daniel's Dutch carbine solidly planted in the low crook of an apple tree and now he had a clear aim at Heath's head. As he began to squeeze the trigger, the injured Daniel took a staggering step sideways to use Heath as a shield in place of Hopton. He let out his breath and relaxed his trigger finger. Shooting Daniel by accident could well cost him his life at the hands of this crew.

  Everyone had forgotten the coach driver, for he had been busy on his perch on the coach trying to keep his team quiet during all of this rushing about. With the horses now settled, he reached under his seat for his driver's pistol, cocked it, and slowly brought it out of its hiding place and swung it towards the man in the flashy hat. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a rush of smoke from an orchard tree, and then heard the bang of a musket and then felt a searing pain in his left thigh. Oh the pain, oh what pain. He dropped the pistol and reached down to his leg. The cloth of his britches was warm and sticky.

  Now realizing his error in standing so close to the coach, Daniel half pushed, half dragged Heath towards the farmhouse door, all the time keeping the Lord Justice between him and the low wall which now had a line muskets resting on top of it. "William Strode, are you in there?" he yelled out to the farmhouse door. "I have been sent by John Pym to rescue thee and thy family. Are you in there?"

  "I am here," came a muffled reply through the door.

  "Then crack the door and put a shilling in my hand to hire me and my men as your apple pickers."

  At these words, Heath stiffened. At one time in his long career he had been the Solicitor General so he knew exactly what this fancy cappe
d devil was planning. He tried to call a warning to Hopton, but it was choked off by a gentle prick of a blade at his throat.

  The door open slightly and a hand from inside held out a silver coin and Daniel grabbed it and held it up to show it to all who were present. Only then did he bellow to his men. "We are now in the legal employ of William Strode on his property. We now have the same legal right as he to defend his property using reasonable force if necessary." He waited for the words to sink in. He waited while his crew finished tying up the six men they had captured. He waited while his men found good cover and strung their bows.

  Hopton and his musketeers watched from behind the wall and realized that these bowmen meant business because they were sticking their long arrows into the dirt so the flights were within easy reach. Meanwhile Daniel was so busy looking around that he took his knife away from Heath's throat so there wouldn't be any nasty accidents. Heath took advantage of this and yelled out, "What are you waiting for Hopton. They have old fashioned bows and arrows. You have modern muskets. Use them!"

  The musketeers peering over the low wall were in no hurry to start a fight with bowmen. Hopton had fought in Holland and Germany, and had even volunteered for the mission that had rescued the King's sister, Betty of Bohemia, from deep behind the Empire's lines. His musketeers had all fought in the recent battles with the Scots. They had long ago learned that when musketeers stood against bowmen, the musketeers got off only one shot before a hail of arrows took them down.

  "William, what is that shack behind the low wall?" Daniel called through the door.

  "The old privy,” came Strode's panicky voice from the crack in the door. "I've been away in Westminster so long that I've not had the chance to tear it down."

  "Karl!" Daniel yelled out, knowing full well that Karl would not hear his orders, but that the men with him would, "your first job in Master Strode's employ is to tear down that old privy."

  Every man in this farmyard was now craning his neck to see the old privy. In doing so they missed seeing a very large man heft a seventy pound blunderbuss up under one arm so that he could repositioned the three small sandbags that it would rest on when aimed and fired it. Without any more warning, Karl did exactly that.

  The ships swivel gun blew out enough foul smoke to choke the devil and enough noise to scare every saddle horse and coach horse into running out of the farm yard and down the cartway. The top half of the old privy disappeared in a cloud of splinters. Completely disappeared, roof and all.

  While Hopton's musketeers looked at the missing privy in shock and awe, his own experience kept him cool and watching the mini-cannon. His own shock and awe came not from the disappearance of the privy, but that in the time it took his men to swivel their heads and make their exclamations, the mini-cannon was already reloaded and ready to fire again.

  He had only once seen this type of gun before and that was in Holland. It was a breach loader and the big gunner had a spare breach mug already loaded and ready to fire. "We surrender!" he yelled out a few times, and then slowly stood up with his hands raised. His musketeers joined him, all thankful for the timely surrender.

  Only once Hopton and his men were disarmed and snuggly tied, did William Strode emerge from his house carrying an ancient matchlock musket. He was in tears. "How can I ever thank you. I could never survive another stint in the king's prison. For twelve years that man," he pointed to Heath, "kept me locked up for criticizing Charlie's taxes." It took him a moment to pull himself together but then he asked, "What now?"

  "We will take you and your family safely away from here,” Daniel replied and then he turned to the bound knight. "Sir Hopton, your men's weapons are forfeit, but not your horses." Seizing the horses could be construed as horse-theft, a hanging offense. "We thank you in advance for lending them to us for an hour or two to carry the family. You may recover them at Weir Quay, that's a hamlet on the River Tamara, but I must warn you not to be in a hurry to collect them."

  From the corner of his eye he saw Weston arrive from the orchard. He was carefully uncocking the carbine, which meant he had already reloaded it after shooting the coach driver. Strode pulled at Daniel's sleeve and Daniel told him to go back inside and pack everyone and everything. Only when Strode was inside did he turn and call to Heath. The justice had not yet been tied up, and he seemed very nervous and had used his freedom to wander into the center of the farm yard as far from everyone else as he could be, and towards his coach, which the startled horses had pulled out of the yard and down the cartway a ways towards the village. "Robert Heath, we bring you greetings from the survivors of your Axholme colony in the Carolinas."

  Heath's eyes went suddenly wide with panic, and he turned away, and began to run towards his coach "Stop, or we'll shoot,” Daniel called after him, twice, then he turned to Weston and hissed, "Do it!"

  Weston snugged his carbine into his shoulder and took careful aim at the heart side of the fleeing man's back. In the back. He closed his eyes to pray as he squeezed the trigger. He opened his eyes at the curses from many lips of, "you missed." Immediately four pistols fired but the running man was already beyond the aimed range of them. By the time the anyone else had a bow or a musket aimed, it was too late. Heath was in his carriage and the wounded driver was whipping his team down the cartway and towards the village.

  "Sorry,” Weston said, over an over, to the rest of the crew. "Shall I ride after him? I'm sorry. I'll ride after him."

  "Forget it,” Daniel whispered to Weston. "No matter how much he deserves it, if you hunted him down the law would judge it as premeditated and in the village there would be witnesses. That bastard. He's been the King's justice for twenty odd years. I wonder how many times he has excused an arresting officer by writing the words 'killed while trying to escape'. Of course he would have recognized this as just such a setup, which was why he was so nervous and why he had been shuffling across the yard."

  * * * * *

  The crew of the Swift rigged a clumsy makeshift storm sail to help them row the Swift out passed Plymouth and then out of the Sound. Only after they reached open water did they ship the oars and raise the great triangle sails. They made good time on a following wind all the way back to Lyme.

  At Lyme, Blake, Weston, and the entire crew went ashore. Their journey was done. The men from Lyme were home, yet again. The men from Bridgwater could now make their way home with Blake. Weston could press on to Bristol, to his long estranged family, and take Warwick's five handsome horses with him to drop at Warwick's business office at that port.

  Warwick was staying aboard, as were his four lifeguards, and Strode and the four in his family. Together there were just enough hands and enough men to crew the Swift in fair winds along the coast, passed Dover, into the Thames Estuary. This was good news for Daniel, as that got the Swift most of the way home without having to take on crew, and without sending all the way to the Fen's to have a crew come by coach to meet him in Lyme.

  Of everyone aboard the Swift, it was Warwick who enjoyed the trip along the coast the most. He parked himself on the wheel and pretended to be the captain, while Daniel ran about showing everyone how the rigging worked. As it happened, they never did go up the Thames to London, for once beyond Dover, Warwick made the decision to open the Rich country home to Strode and his family, so they crossed the Thames Estuary, sailed between the marsh islands of Southern Essex, and up the River Roach to Rochford Hall..

  The whole way, Daniel and Warwick were making plans. The muskets captured from Hopton's men were given to Warwick as the first of many consignments of guns and thus sealed the agreement. Five times Daniel refused to sell him the Swift, ... rig, cannons, and all ... even though the price being offered reached ridiculous levels. The last offer was made in the comfort of the library in Warwick's manor at Rochford, and it was this palace which eventually convinced Daniel of the great wealth that Warwick controlled.

  Daniel's answer was always no. The Swift had a pivotal role in his clan's coming migration.
He had it all figured out. The clan would buy some solid, fast hulls and re-rig them as Bermudan, then they would make them pay for themselves by trading Dutch genever and muskets to Londoners. This was all the easier now that payment was to be guaranteed by Warwick and the Providence Company. Once the profit was in hand, they would use it to buy a years worth of provisions so the entire clan could sail to the Caribbean. The larger Swift would be the escort for the smaller ships.

  The first stop would be Bermuda, where they would use Warwick's license to claim one of the harbours. Once ashore in that paradise, the village could live off fish and coconuts while the crew used the ships to explore more of the Caribbean, and set up trade routes. Certainly the ships would explore the Bahaman Islands and the Virgins. While the ships were searching for a better paradise island than Bermuda, they could pay their way by hauling salt.

  It was these plans that Daniel was eager to take back to his village in the Fens, but first he needed a crew to sail the Swift out of the Roach River. Warwick had the answer. He sent along the same four lifeguard who had sailed with them from Lyme to work as Daniel's crew. Five was just enough men to run her so long as there was no weather. This was not just as a favour, of course, for the lifeguard were to return by coach with messages from Daniel. Messages that would tell Warwick when to expect the next shipments of guns.

  The Swift arrived in Daniel's village of Wellenhay in time for the heavy work of autumn. The harvest, the netting of the autumn fish and eel runs, the preparing of the roofs and walls and animals for the winter, all of it was underway. Daniel spent the first week home reacquainting himself with his inherited family of four women and a lad. They were the two widows, one with two daughters, and one with a son, who he had inherited due to the drowning death of his elder brother. More importantly, he spent the first week taking his clansmen for sails in the Swift to show off the new Bermudan rig.