by Mark Keating
Rogers straightened in his seat, the pipe hanging from his wet mouth, and began again as if he was already halfway through his speech. ‘This will be a good match for me, John. To be backed by such a consortium of businessmen after coming back to England with the bones of my arse showing through my breeches. And with the King reposing especial trust in my prudence, courage and loyalty. I have the smell of knighthood in my nostrils if I can turn this.’ He tipped his glass to Coxon. ‘Mark me, John, we shall all do well of this.’
‘We had better, sir, not being paid and all.’ Coxon gave up on his fork and lifted his glass of Oporto’s cheapest offering.
Rogers craned forward, almost choking on his drooping pipe. ‘Profit, John! Profit for us all! Better than wages! A colony! An income of taxes! I could build a nation here!’
‘Aye,’ Coxon agreed. ‘If we live so long.’
‘Oh come, John! Were we not chosen for our swords! Our habit for blood! We don’t shine chairs with our britches! We fight, man! We sail! Necessity has frequently set men on noble undertakings.’
Coxon held his chin and looked at his plate. Rogers’ enthusiasm was inspiring but not infectious. New Providence had only been leased to him, despite all the noble titles bestowed, his badge of office was nothing more than a decorative rental agreement signed by a king. But Rogers could not easily afford the rent and had turned to financiers to loan him the necessary fifty pounds per annum. Seven years’ worth. Even Thomas ‘Diamond’ Pitt had put his hand in his pocket. Coxon had only known such men to open their purses at the hint of coffee, sugar, or slaves. It would not be for the pirates alone, as Rogers’ first petition – to clear Madagascar – had fallen on deaf ears. So why now? Why Providence?
‘Would you not wonder, sir, how it was that a string of London purses gladly sent us here? To capture a small lost colony already raped by Spaniards and impregnated by pirates. What wealth is left here to be gained?’
Rogers leant back in his chair, his teeth clicking on his pipe stem. A rivulet of spittle seeped from the crooked corner of his mouth. ‘Four thousand pounds of expenses has helped us, John, and it’s not my own ships this time. No, this is important, John. This is special. The pirates seize almost one third of the trade from the colonies and another third of that which comes back. Bad enough the damn natives war with the towns constantly never mind suffering pirates to boot. I feel that some, back in Whitehall, believe the Americas to be a lost world rather than a new one.’ He watched Coxon not listening. ‘What ails thee, John? Is it more of this pirate of yours?’
‘No pirate of mine, sir. He was my steward, as you know, as all your captains know.’ Coxon coughed on his port. ‘I have become a laughing stock, Governor, because of the man. I have fought in two wars, been posted captain, yet I shall be remembered for the man of mine that became a pirate under me.’
Woodes Rogers leant forward. ‘And what of me?’ he chortled with his cheeks now port red. ‘Thanks to old man Dampier’s damned book I will be remembered as the man who rescued that simpleton Selkirk. I believe some scribbler is writing a novella of it now. An English novella! Leave that to the French and Spanish for God’s sakes! Plays and poetry for Englishmen!’
The coach door slipped open and Oscar Hodge, Coxon’s valet, hobbled in with a hand cupped over a tallow light. The two men paid him no mind as he gently lit the lamps. Coxon poured more port for his guest.
‘What ails me, Governor, is that I returned to the board in shame,’ he filled his own glass, with a chime from the bottle kissing the rim of his goblet. ‘I was sent to protect a fortune in gold. Trust me on that: I saw it with my own eyes.’ He drained his glass in two gulps. ‘But I lost it. Forget the men that were with me. I lost it.’
‘Is that so?’ Rogers rubbed his aching jaw.
‘I take it as so.’ Coxon breathed quietly, turning his empty glass in circles on the table. ‘But that is not all.’ He looked Rogers in the eye, testing to see how much he knew about events.
‘I have never told this to another soul, sir.’ He lowered his voice to barely a whisper.
‘That gold was not for protecting. Far from it. My First Lieutenant had other plans. Other orders.’ He checked Rogers’ eyes, but they were only glazed with wine.
‘Other orders?’
‘Aye. I was not supposed to return from that place. The gold was not …’ he hesitated, and changed his line of conversation slightly. Just in case. ‘Something else was to happen. Maybe Providence is part of it. I have become an embarrassment to my rank and do not have the backing of wealth to clear my name except by this man’s death. Or my own.’
He filled his glass again and grinned in defiance. ‘Or maybe I have just drunk too much of late.’
‘A dark thought indeed, John. I hope your darkest suspicions do not cause you to question your loyalties?’
Coxon shook his head thoughtfully. ‘I trust in those who trust in me, Governor.’
Rogers saluted him with his glass. ‘But let us talk of the morning,’ he said, attempting to cauterise Coxon’s brooding, which had dampened his mood.
‘Now tell me: I need, I think, a dozen nooses. What say you? To make a point. Who do you have to avail me of such?’
Chapter Eight
Charles Town, South Carolina.
Edward Teach regretted nothing. Privateering had taught him so. All coin was milled in blood and he had watched captains like Hornigold and Jennings, good captains fighting for their country against the French and Spanish dogs, be disavowed and denied as soon as treaty had replaced touchpaper.
He had gone from Bristol to Jamaica for his country and little profit and, after the crowns of Europe had signed their names at Utrecht, it was natural to follow Hornigold on the account rather than break his back for a living. Besides, he cut too tall a figure to be below decks. He felt tall enough even for the stars to be within his reach.
Two years had now passed since he had been given his own sloop from Hornigold’s hand and grown the long, matted beard that won him his devil’s name. He wore a triple brace of pistols holstered across his chest, a broad black hat with twists of match set around the brim – and in his beard – to light and add a mythical quality to his battle face. Teach was a fearsome towering sight to see in a blood-red coat swinging aboard his prey, all wreathed in smoke as if he had ascended from the bowels of hell.
Blackbeard.
And so, success after success and on to the Concorde, a French slaver of three hundred tons, square-rigged with poop, quarter and fo’c’sle decks. Massive for a pirate and likely to run aground if she even saw a sandbar, but to Teach she was equal to his stature.
He re-christened her the Queen Anne’s Revenge, a typical pirate gesture for in their eyes their only crimes were loyalty to the late Queen and a Stuart sentimentality. They were political exiles awaiting the day when Hanover fell and they could return home to a righteous welcome. Their profession had nothing to do with criminality at all. Piracy was how they ate, for what choice did men have whose country had been stolen from them?
Aye, and you can swallow as much shit as you like but it won’t feed you.
Gold, drink, freedom and adventure were justification enough to keep men from the capstan and the field. And Captain Teach had ambition beyond the ken of most.
He had bought land in the Americas, at Bath Town, married a plantation owner’s daughter to add to his many other port-wives and had even shared his nuptials with some chosen men of his now four-hundred-plus crew whilst he sat in a wicker chair by her bedside in the dark, watching and smoking without a word.
Teach now associated with Governor Charles Eden of young Bath Town and Tobias Knight, his secretary. After Providence grew too hot, he ensured the relationship grew closer. Edward Teach planned to make the leap from pirate to New World gentry and Governor Eden offered him a proverbial apple. One final great cruise. One last act before taking the King’s grace and hanging up his cutlass and becoming a citizen of the regular world.
; Go to Charles Town, said Eden. Take your great and terrible ship and hold to ransom the largest and most profitable settlement in the whole Carolinas. It was not a royal province so there was no garrison to deal with, just whatever drunken militia the Lords Proprietor provided. Do this for me, said Eden, and I will grant you clemency.
Approach but do not attack. Demand but do not harm. Halt its trade but do not plunder. It possesses one thing that I want and there is only one man who can give it to you.
Ignatius’s life had grown immune to the notion of surprise, his face even more so, but he raised his eyebrows at the brashness of the pirate who had come to his home.
First there was a note for Governor Johnson delivered by Teach’s captains Marks and Richards, then the same to another address given him by Eden. The note demanded a ransom for their burgeoning city, price to be paid in full. Ignatius’s rare sensation of novelty on receipt of the demand had produced an invitation for Teach to attend him.
‘You wish my chest of medicines, Captain?’ Ignatius, clad in black velvet with white Holland linen shirt and cravat, held his hands calmly in his lap, leant back in his chair and observed the beast before him. Ignatius himself was lean in comparison, older, narrow as a hat-stand, and Teach could have snapped him like a wishbone if he chose. But Ignatius, his real name almost forgotten after nine years of anonymity, feared villains as the wind fears the sea. The years of peace had necessitated the use of the lower species of the human world.
Blackbeard drank, standing, unconvinced that the elegant elm-wood chairs the room afforded could survive him. ‘Aye. My intentions be but that,’ his voice was Bristol-rich. ‘Though whatever silver finds its way to me in negotiations I’ll not return.’ He pushed his glass forward for more liquor. Ignatius waved him to the commode to help himself.
‘Do you know where I acquired this chest, Captain Teach?’ His voice was gently testing.
Teach’s back rose in humour as he poured. ‘I might. More important to me is that it comes out of here and away.’ He turned back with his brimming glass. ‘Else it will not be my will that besets this town … but the fault of yours.’ He raised his glass to the man behind the desk.
‘But of course, Captain.’ Ignatius smiled. ‘You would have no blame in the matter.’ He spun his chair to look onto his garden, his back to Teach. The garden remained cool within its high walls despite the spring season, with a sundial in the centre that caught no sun. ‘Whoever your benefactor is, his knowledge of the origins of the chest is perfectly correct. Therefore his summary of its contents is a shrewd assumption. But still erroneous, as I discovered myself when I purchased it last year. It’s certainly not worth the risk of blockading a whole town.’
Ignatius stood up and Teach shifted instinctively at the sudden movement.
‘Very well. You may have your chest, Captain,’ he said, crossing the room to Teach and keeping his hands in view. ‘I would certainly not wish to be held responsible for the consequences if you did not.’ He sampled a measure of his own rum, mindful first to top up Teach’s glass. ‘However, you may be able to assist me in an endeavour of my own, entirely related to yours. You see, I have knowledge of the correct location of your benefactor’s interest.’ He touched goblets with the pirate, flinching a little at the grimy hand holding his crystal. ‘And there will be an incentive for yourself as encouragement.’
Teach swallowed his rum and bid for another. ‘I have my loyalties to contend with. I will be owed privateering rights for my troubles here,’ he paused as he watched his glass fill. ‘I be nearly forty now. Too old to be a pirate. Too slow to rule over pups. I wish to rule on land. I have my eyes set to be a man of land.’ The word ‘land’ he spoke with a smirk and a West-country drawl, as if the thought were ridiculous even to him.
Ignatius betrayed no reaction and returned to his desk, where he sipped at his glass thoughtfully. ‘Then I may have aptitudes beyond the powers of your present partner, Captain.’ He picked up several sheets of vellum and flourished them at the pirate. ‘My services are not just limited to these provinces. Almost every crown and faction in Europe is at my ear. Why limit your ambitions to these climes, Captain, when I could grant you rights to France, to Holland, to anywhere? Perhaps you may fancy a castle in Portugal? An Earldom in Ireland even?’
Teach, his eyes fixed on the vellum, moved closer and snatched them from Ignatius. He spread them in his hands like cards, spilling drops of his drink as he did so. The scripts were in a number of languages, each one sealed and signed with noble boldness, each one more elaborate than the last. He passed them back respectfully. ‘I look upon you differently, sir.’
Ignatius replaced the sheets on his desktop. ‘Naturally I do not wish to interfere with your present loyalties, but merely to extend your horizons and guide you on the correct path, Captain.’
Blackbeard straightened his back, and the pistols holstered across his chest rustled under his long beard. ‘What is it you would have me do?’
Ignatius sat, his desk of Office once more between them. ‘I am used to having more than one iron in the fire so to speak, Captain. I am currently seeking to return to my possession the item your partner believes to be in the chest. However, I am waiting on my chosen party to begin his quest for it. He has yet to arrive here to take his instructions. He will be your competitor, but I am sure not your equal, and two of you working on the task independently would prove to be of the highest utility to me.’
Teach closed one eye, inclining his head as if he had misheard Ignatius. ‘Two of us? What does that imply? Speak careful now.’
‘Another pirate, naturally. Are you aware of the one known as Devlin? A Captain Patrick Devlin?’
Blackbeard’s open eye widened. He breathed deeply and drew himself up even taller so that he seemed to almost reach the ceiling beams. ‘Aye. I know a man named Devlin. Know a man who betrayed his good pirate captain. Who took his ship and his men and left him to die. Aye, I know such a man.’
Ignatius watched Teach undergo a sea-change before his very eyes. Even beneath his customary filth he could see the pirate’s skin flush at some raw, livid thought as he drained his glass.
It had been back on Providence, before the days of Queen Anne’s Revenge, when Teach had commanded one of Hornigold’s sloops and had but eighty men to call his own.
He had come ashore early, fancying himself a little dalliance in town at The Porker’s End, and had left his quartermaster, Israel Hands, in charge of the ship.
Seth Toombs’s men had been there, only now they were Devlin’s. It turned out that the man ridiculed as ‘Dandelion’ needed his spleen vented. Teach had aimed to provide but Devlin had intervened. He had raised a pistol to Teach. Devlin had dared to point a gun at Blackbeard.
Teach pulled out the stump of candle he kept under his coat and close to his heart, but Ignatius’s quizzical expression passed unnoticed by the pirate in his reverence. The odds at the time against him, Blackbeard had backed down from the young upstart. But not for long. Teach had cut the candle right there in front of Devlin, cut it for the last hours of Devlin’s life. The candle was to damn him for his pride against one such as Blackbeard. The small spermicetti stump was to be lit once Devlin had received his mortal wound. Then it would burn away the final hours of his life. It was one of the old ways. The Tortuga ways.
Teach’s eyes seemed to focus again and his ill humour evaporated as the candle went once again beneath the folds of his clothes. He looked directly at Ignatius.
‘Aye, Ignatius,’ he said. ‘You have your man to do your bidding.’
Chapter Nine
By the time four bells rang out for the fourth time Coxon was crouched with Rogers in the Milford’s longboat. Ten sailors sat at the oars, their backs to the island, their eyes to the cutlasses lying at their feet. Two young lieutenants sat side by side at the tiller, eyes sharp to the beach pulling ever closer and their fifty-guinea swords clamped between their knees.
Coxon looked over to the other boa
t drawing slightly ahead of them, crammed with scarlet men whose muskets pointed skyward like a dozen masts. He examined Rogers’ granite face. His governor’s chin was held high. His eyes were fixed on the crowd gathering on the beach.
Coxon pulled his pistol from his belt. He checked the screws with his thumbnail and the tightness of the leather-wrapped flint. He tipped the pistol down sharply to satisfy himself that the patch was loaded and packed well. Coxon regretted not polishing the brass plate or waxing the whole and stuffed the gun through his belt on his left hip to prevent the lock digging into his side. He sniffed, raising his head to assess the size of the assembly shuffling down to the beach, now less than a hundred yards away.
Coxon looked to his right, past proud Rogers’ puffed-out chest, to the third boat crawling its way to shore. Six hands sat huddled in the jolly boat, rolling their backs with the oars, trying not to disturb the three main pieces of the gibbet lying amongst them in case its bad luck should afflict them. A box of bolts rested between the sheets, wrapped in coils of hemp rope.
They were into the last of the murky breakers now. Rogers said nothing. He wiped neither the spittle from the side of his ragged lip nor the streaks of sweat seeping from beneath his wig. He simply held his head high as he took in the band of three hundred souls that had come to meet him. Three hundred armed pirates.
They formed a colourful and undulating line, an assortment of unshaven figures glittering with sheathed weapons and among them a motley selection of fine fashions as well as filthy coats and hats. Unkempt hair tumbled down their faces like straw or was restrained in head-scarves. They would be pitiful were it not for their wealth of warlike steel. A large proportion was arrayed as tattered gentlemen above but with no shoes or boots on their black feet.