by Celia Rees
Everyone had their own tale of how they came to be on the account. Vincent was Malagasy. He had been born on the island of Madagascar, the son of a native woman and an American pirate named Flood who had served with Captain Every. He had left the island when he was twelve years old, joining a passing merchant ship that had stopped in for fresh water. He called himself Crosby, the nearest English tongues could make of his Malagasy name. He had served on one ship, then another, until eventually he had been taken by pirates and had chosen to go on the account.
'So, I wind up following my father. Something as a boy I swore that I would never do. Swore to my mother, too. Yet here I am.'
The men would nod, recognising the vagaries of life at sea, its unpredictability. For none there had planned to go on the account. They had all started out as ordinary sailors.
Vincent would tell stories from his home, of the pirates who had settled there and the tales that they had told in turn of the fabulous Moghul wealth taken by Every: gold and silver, emeralds and pearls, diamonds as big as a fist. The men liked to hear about this. They liked tales of treasure. Dreams of such wealth cushioned the risk of being on the account and made the dangers seem worthwhile.
Others would talk of treasures they'd seen, captains they had known, but no one could match Ignatius Pelling. He had served with the best of them, so he said, the greatest pirates who ever sailed the seven seas. He'd been on the Queen Anne's Revenge with Edward Teach, whose heart was as black as the beard which gave him his name, and he'd been bo'sun to Stede Bonnet, who couldn't sail worth a damn, but had been a real gentleman. He'd even sailed with Black Bart Roberts.
'Dressed like a lord, he did. Give Broom a lesson or two. Legend in my own life, lads. That's what I am,' Pelling would grin, exposing a row of tobacco-stained stumps. 'Would you like to hear of it?'
Of course they would. The men sat and listened, quiet as children, while Pelling spoke of the Queen Anne's Revenge and how Teach sank his own ship, running her aground on a sand bar and abandoning his crew to their fate.
'Worst of the lot he was. When they caught him, he took twenty cuts and five pistol balls, and he still weren't finished.' Pelling would drop his voice then, as if other presences were gathering to listen in the growing darkness. 'Weren't natural. "Let us make a Hell of our own," said ol' Blackbeard. I heard him say it, mates. Heard him with my own ears. There's they that do believe,' Pelling's voice dropped lower, as though he sensed the phantom eavesdroppers moving closer, 'that the Devil himself were aboard Blackbeard's ship. Did I ever tell you that?' He did not wait for a response. The men nodded for him to go on. 'We were cruising off the Carolinas when the rumour spread that there was one man on board more than the crew.'
'Anyone seen him?' Charlie asked, with a note of scepticism in his voice. 'What did he look like?'
'He was seen all right. Up on deck and down below. He looked like any other fella. Sometimes like this one, sometimes like that one; but no one could give an account of who he was, or where he was from. Just before the ship was took, he disappeared.' Pelling paused. 'Queer story. But everyone on board that ship would have swore it was true.'
This story usually silenced the company. Many were new to the account and had yet to encounter captains of such legendary fury as Edward Teach, who made a friend of the Devil and defied the laws of both man and God; but this time someone spoke from the darkness.
'I heard that story before,' he began in a sibilant voice, that I didn't recognise. The speaker's English was heavily accented, as if he were Portuguese or Spanish. He must be new to the crew, I thought, from the French ship that Broom had just taken. 'A long time ago. They tell it about a privateer. A Brazilian, called Bartholomeo. He had the Devil on his ship, that's what they say, and the Devil sail with him all over the Caribbean until one day he leave. Can't stand it no more. He say the captain worse than him!' He gave a little laugh, like rusty hinges creaking. 'It is an old story, I think.'
A chill passed over me, although the night was hot. Minerva felt me shiver and looked up. At her suggestion, we searched out the man after the company broke up for the evening, wanting to know more, but there was little else he could tell us.
'He dead, for all I know. He retire from the sea many years ago. I heard he buy plantations, make a comfortable life for himself on land. Why go back?' The little man gave his creaking laugh again. 'He have no reason. Not like me. He keep his money.'
'It's just a tale,' Minerva whispered, as we lay in our hammocks. 'You know what sailors are for stories.'
I hardly heard the rest of what she was saying. I knew she was trying to lessen my fears; and her faith in the ship, and in the ability of Vincent and the others to repel any attacker, had grown a great deal since we had spoken of this before. But to me the ship's bells that tolled the hours towards morning sounded a warning, like a tocsin. We had been on the account for nearly a month, cruising about the Windward Channel, taking ship after ship, but we were hunting over the same ground. We had been laying a trail a mile wide. The sudden thought chilled me again, even though it was close below decks. Every ship taken added to Broom's reputation. He and his crew were becoming known. How long before it was also known that there were women among them? The Brazilian was far from stupid, and he had once been a buccaneer. How long before he picked up our trail? How long before he found us?
That night, when sleep eventually came. I had the dream again. I heard him laughing on the quarterdeck. I heard the crack of canvas in a freshening wind. I heard the hiss of a ship moving fast through the water. I did not see the ship. It remained indistinct, a black shadow moving on the dark sea, but I could see its bow wave and its wake.
I woke with the certain knowledge that he had put to sea, and that someone had betrayed us.
I wanted to urge Broom to move to another cruising ground, but I feared that he would not agree, and neither would the council. We had done well, changing the Deliverance for a large French vessel that had been heading for Martinique. Renamed the Fortune, she had been joined by two sloops: smaller, swifter vessels that allowed us to hunt as a pack. All three ships were stuffed to the gunnels with plunder. Minerva could not see why Broom would change course on the say-so of a dream of mine, and I had a feeling that she was right, but I was determined to ask him.
I found him in his cabin with Pelling, going through the manifest of what wras on board the three vessels.
'Rum, sugar, molasses, spices.' He ran a finger down a column. 'What's the use of that? We might as well be shipping coals to Newcastle. Cloth, combs, buttons, thimbles, scissors, shoemakers' knives. It reads like the contents of a peddler's pack.' He threw his quill on the table. 'I did not go on the account for that.'
'I got an idea, Cap'n,' Pelling stepped forward.
Broom looked up, expectant. The quartermaster on a pirate ship holds a special position. There is no one like him on an ordinary vessel. He is chosen by the men and stands between them and the captain, bringing their grievances to his attention. Pelling was held in high regard, not least because of his experience. He had been a pirate for longer than any on the ship, ten years by his counting. To have escaped hanging for so long was enough to compel the respect of everyone. Being new to the account, Broom relied on Pelling. The crew had made Broom captain, but they could just as easily be rid of him. Pelling had come to say that the men were getting restless. They wanted paying, and in gold and silver. Broom had to find a way of turning the cargo into money and quick. The men would not wait much longer.
'I was thinking,' Pelling went on. 'About the time when I was in the Carolinas, with Teach and Bonnet ... '
Broom looked impatient. He did not enjoy Pelling's stories as much as his crew did.
'Well, it's just we did a deal of trading while we was there. All along the seaboard, in fact, from Charlestown to Baltimore.'
'Hmm.' Broom leaned back, considering.
'Avid to buy, they are, and just as keen not to pay a penny to the revenue. We could sell the lot, no tr
ouble at all, and at good prices. Got another idea,' he thrust a thumb at me, 'relating to her and t'other one ... '
'Go on.' Broom was all ears now. 'I'm listening ... '
Pelling's idea appealed to Broom. Not only did it offer a way to turn a profit, but it gave him a new role to act and, showman that he was, he liked that. It appealed to me, too, seeming the perfect way to give the Brazilian the slip, but I was not sure how it would be received by Minerva.
22
Pelling's plan was simple. All we had to do was take what we had acquired so far, sail up the eastern seaboard as regular merchantmen and sell our cargoes to the Americans. When that was done, we would go to New York, divide up the profits and break up the company. To make our pose as honest traders all the more convincing, Broom ordered the name of the ship to be changed to the Neptune. He changed his own name to Abraham, shaved off his piratical beard and moustache, laid aside his silk and satin in favour of plain linen, woollen vest and breeches and a sea coat of blue broadcloth. Minerva and I had a vital part to play. We would revert to women's clothes and take up our roles. I would be Broom's niece, Minerva my companion.
The crew had got used to seeing us as men, so when we stepped on to the quarterdeck dressed in female apparel we were greeted with hoots of laughter and a good deal of ribald comment.
'Enough of that!' Broom bawled down at the crew. 'That's my niece and my ward, an heiress from Barbados. I'm taking 'em back to England to finish their education, and I'll have 'em treated with respect!'
It had taken a great deal of persuasion before Minerva would consent to take on this role. Pelling's original idea was for her to play my slave. She utterly refused, and I could not blame her. She'd risked death without a second thought; but to go back to being a slave, even as a pretence, would be a death of a different sort. Broom persuaded her in the end by telling her about a Barbadian heiress who had taken passage on one of his ships.
'Very rich, she was. Going to England to finish her education. You'll be a lady. Equal to Nancy, here. Superior, in fact. She can act as your companion.'
Pelling's plan worked better than we could have dreamed. Women on board added credence to Broom's claim that we were honest traders, sailing in convoy out of fear of attack from the pirates who lurked off the coast. In Charlestown, the crew roistered in the inns and drinking dens, no different from sailors anywhere, while Captain Abraham, his niece and his charge, Surgeon Graham and the other ship's officers were entertained by the finest families. Charlestown held a promise of elegance, and the people were generous and hospitable, although they did not know quite what to make of Minerva. They treated her with the utmost politeness, but drew away when she moved among them, as though a panther walked in their midst, which served to make her distant and haughty. She spoke little, but when she did, she sounded like me, which they found even more confusing. None of them expected a person of her colour to sound like a lady.
We joined in with Broom's play-acting for the business we were doing, but I could see it made Minerva unhappy, and I was ever more aware of the risk we were taking. Broom wanted me to dress very fine, and even urged me to wear the ruby necklace. This I refused to do. I had developed a deep superstitious fear of it; the very feel of it on my skin set me shuddering. The middle stone was larger than the others. Smooth and rounded, slightly darker at the centre, like a great crimson eye. I know it was foolish, but I began to fancy that he could wratch me when I wore it, so I would not put it around my neck. Broom persuaded me into the earrings, however, and I consented to wear those, since they were rich enough to excite admiration, but not so ostentatious that any might take us for thieves or sea robbers.
Pirates were hardly welcome here.
Blackbeard's head had been brought into Bathtown hanging from a bowsprit and Major Bonnet and his crew had been hung at White Point. The people of Charlestown were proud of the part that they had played in bringing these men of blood (as they saw them) to justice; they were prouder still of the fact that the famous female pirate, Anne Bonny, had begun her career out of the Carolinas. I duly gasped and threw up my hands and did my best to express my amazement and horror at behaviour so unnatural, while wondering what the town's good people would do if they knew that they entertained just such another.
We did brisk trade wrherever we went. Not just in the towns, but with the plantations which were growing up along the creeks and inlets of the coast of the Carolinas. The planters were no less hospitable, inviting us to dine with them and attend their parties and balls. Female presence, and Broom's gentlemanly appearance, were enough to prevent any from suspecting who we really were, and allowed us to command the highest prices for our stolen chattels.
We cruised on to Baltimore and New York. Both proved more workaday ports than Charlestown, like to my own town of Bristol, although their streets and docks were not crowded in by the past. There was a newness here which held promise. I had a feeling that it was possible to arrive as one person and swiftly become quite another. For pirates, such places hold possibility.
When we reached New York, Broom broke up the company. The spoils were divided, each man receiving his share of a hoard that was considerably more than the £1000 agreed in the Articles. After the share out, the crew dispersed as fast as rats from a ship on fire. Some, who had a mind to become lubbers, headed off up the Hudson, for there was much land to be had in America and their money would buy them a fair acreage. Others left for the north: to Rhode Island, or the ports of New Haven, Boston, Salem, Nantucket and New Bedford to carry on a seafaring way of life: fishing, whaling, honest trading, or going back on the account. Most, however, went no further than the New York waterfront. They would be back wTith us after spending their money on drink, or losing it in some gambling den, or having it stolen by the New York whores who plied their trade on Petticoat Lane.
23
We took lodgings with a widow woman in a fine big Dutch-gabled house on Pearl Street. Broom needed time to negotiate the sale of the ships he no longer required, he said. Besides, he had business to conduct. Pelling grumbled. Staying in one place made him nervous. I was tired of the play-acting and shared his nervousness. We'd had no word about the Brazilian, and Broom had roundly dismissed my dreams and any threat from him, but I did not share his complacency. He was out there, prowling the coast somewhere, I was sure of it. For all I knew, he could sail into New York any day and tie up in the berth next to ours. And if I wras weary of keeping up the pretence, Minerva was nearing mutiny. She hated the stares and whispers she attracted, saying she felt as though she had been taken from a menagerie and was being led about on a chain by me. There were many people of colour, both slave and free, but they were all treated as inferior in New York – as much as in the colonies to the south.
'I'm tired of this,' she told me. 'I could buy this house and everything in it, yet that woman treats me as if I were a servant, although she knows very well that I am not. I'm thinking of going back to the ship.'
She was staring out of our window at the ships moored on the river, concentrating her gaze on the sloop tied up just below us.
'What will I tell Broom?'
'Tell him what you like. But that's what I'm going to do.' She turned and gave me a brilliant smile, suddenly more cheerful than I'd seen her in a long while.
'I'll help you pack.'
'Don't need to.' Her smile broadened. 'You don't think I'm going like this, do you?' She spread the wide silk skirt of her dress. 'There are plenty of clothes on board. And if I'm in need of finery, then Vincent can lend me some of his.'
Vincent lived on board the sloop. He was captain of the ship in Broom's absence. She was going to leave me and go back to dressing as a man. I sat down on the bed, feeling suddenly lonely. I'd be on my own for the first time in months.
'I wish I could come with you.'
'Well, you can't. Broom would never allow it. Besides, the landlady might recognise you – we're moored right outside her parlour window.'
'What
about you?' I was piqued, and not a little bit jealous.
'I'm safer than you are. She wouldn't look twice at another mulatto tar. Don't look like that!' She took me in her arms and hugged me to her. 'Will you miss me?'
'Of course I will!'
'Chin up.' She tipped my chin with her finger. 'Now smile. That's better. I'll miss you, too.'
But if she did, I noticed no signs of it. The next time I saw her she was dressed as a sailor, an old acquaintance of Vincent's newly met in a tavern, his good friend, Jupiter Jones. They both gave me a wave, blowing kisses up to my window as they went into the port. They were of a height and looked well together, matching stride for easy stride. They both dressed alike and wore gold hoops in their ears, their long curling hair tied back with red ribands. Minerva had borrowed Vincent's blue coat with the gold shiny buttons and scarlet bars and looked very handsome in it. I watched them go into the town, heads bent together in easy conversation, and I longed to join them.
But I was left behind, as lonely and confined as a princess in a tower. On the deck of the sloop, I could see Charlie, the ship's boy, gazing after them with brooding devotion, waiting for Vincent's return like a dog tied up at a rail.
The year was turning. In the day, the heat was oppressive, the stink from street and river all but overwhelming, but the mornings had the breath of winter, mist curling off the river. On the deck of the sloop, Vincent looked chilled, his skin tinged with grey. I went with Broom on one of his daily inspections and we found the mate shivering, hugging his coat around him. He had been on deck half of the night and he was not made for these climes, and nor was Minerva. They were anxious to go back on the account, and I feared they might go off on their own if Broom stayed much longer in New York.