Captain in Calico

by George MacDonald Fraser

  ‘The sloop!’ ejaculated Penner. ‘Dear God, they’ll never let you! Turn them free to set the Jamaica Squadron after us? Why—’

  ‘There’s no other way. We haven’t enough crew to sail three vessels. Don’t fret yourself. I’ve sent for Bennett, and before Bankier’s folk are put aboard I’ll have the running rigging torn to shreds. They’ll take long enough to set her right, and we’ll be far away by then. Hell’s gates! It’s either that or murder them all!’

  ‘Aye,’ said Penner doubtfully. ‘You may be right. Maybe they’ll let them go at that. But what then?’

  ‘We’ll split our crew between the brigs. The Star I’ll give to Bennett. You and Anne – and Bull and any like him – will be with me in the Kingston. I want the worst of them under our hands. Then we can be away out of this damned stretch of sea, because before long it’ll be too hot to hold us.’

  Penner passed a hand over the grey stubble on his shaven head and looked about him, blinking against the heat as he surveyed the tangle of gear in the waist and the scars of the recent encounter. A dead marine was lying in the scuppers, his carefully powdered wig clotted with blood; two of the pirates were helping an injured comrade to hobble towards the forecastle, and from below came the shouts and crashing of Bull’s searchers as they hurried through the ship.

  ‘And afterwards, then? When we’ve sailed – away? Where do we go?’

  Rackham shrugged. ‘D’ye think I know? Perhaps I can find a way. If not –.’ He took the Major’s arm. ‘Get you to Anne. Keep her below.’ A thought struck him and he laughed bitterly. ‘D’you mind something. It was her plan, in the beginning – all this! I wonder, would she not rather be back with Bonney after all?’

  He may have been near the truth: at least he was presently left in no doubt that with the disappointment of their enterprise Mistress Bonney’s volatile temperament had again changed suddenly, and it appeared permanently, as far as he was concerned. She came to embarrass him at a critical moment when, Bennett having done his work of crippling the sloop, Bankier and his men were being forced to embark. Unfortunately Bull and his companions had finished their ransacking of the brig, and returned grumbling on deck, for they had found meagre spoils. At once Bull raised a tremendous outcry against Bankier’s release, demanding that he should be kept and tortured to obtain possible information about the treasure, and but for the fact that Bennett, who commanded considerable respect, supported Rackham, the big Yorkshireman might have won his way. As it was the majority realised that there was little purpose in keeping the prisoners, and they were being herded down into the sloop with kicks and abuse while Bull damned Rackham for a bungler and a coward. It was at this moment that Rackham’s eye caught a familiar figure in black stepping through the tangle of timber and cordage that still cluttered the gangway. Anne Bonney, broad-brimmed hat on head and rapier on hip, was skirting round the press of the pirates, and behind her, concern on his face, came Penner.

  She ascended the ladder, graceful as a cat, and stood before Rackham. She was unsmiling, and there was the nasty twist to her mouth that he had seen when she had confronted her husband two nights before.

  ‘So the cupboard was bare, John,’ she began, but he cut her short, addressing Penner.

  ‘I thought I told you to keep her aboard the Kingston.’

  The Major shrugged helplessly and Anne Bonney’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Ye’ve yet to learn that I do as I please,’ she reminded him. ‘And don’t tell me you’re the captain and must be obeyed, for from what I see ye’ll be lucky if you’re captain much longer.’

  It took his breath away, and she swept on: ‘And now that there’s no silver, what d’ye intend to do? Or d’you intend to do anything at all?’

  He was aware that the noise in the waist had died, and that the hands were watching them. He kept his voice low.

  ‘I’m going to do what I can to get myself and you and Harry out of this,’ he said. ‘And I’ll do it best if you’ll not interfere. If ye’d known what was good for you you’d have stayed off this deck and out of sight.’

  To his surprise she laughed softly and cast a glance over her shoulder at the men in the waist.

  ‘So?’ Her grey eyes were hard. ‘Ye know, Jack, I don’t agree at all. I think I know how to preserve my own skin: so I’ll make it my own concern, and do you look to yours.’

  Bull came to interrupt them, demanding again that Bankier should be turned over to the crew, and meeting Rackham’s refusal with a flood of vile abuse. Doubtless he conceived that he was making a profound impression on his companions on the lower deck, but they were unappreciative enough to show less interest in his tirade than in the rum casks and wine-kegs which the astute Penner ordered to be broached as soon as the sloop with its castaways had been warped away from the Star’s side. Whereupon Bull, Achilles-like, strode off in dudgeon, and presently, Anne Bonney having returned to the Kingston with Penner, Rackham was again alone on the Star’s quarter-deck.

  The thieves, having tasted the bitterness of failure, were beginning to fall out.

  14. MOSQUITO BANK

  The Kingston lay at anchor in a green-fringed cove of the tiny islet of Mosquito Bank, her bare yards almost touching the tangle of tropical foliage that grew in dense walls to the water’s edge. Above the oily surface hummed the clouds of insects which had given their name to this pest-ridden haven off the Cuban coast: a spot shunned by honest sea-traffic, and so a refuge for pirate vessels and their crews. Even these were reluctant to anchor in the bank’s foul atmosphere unless forced to do so; it was a token of the Kingston’s necessity that she had been there four days.

  The storm that had come sweeping out of the north on the evening of the day they took the Star had driven them southwards under bare yards. They had lost sight of the Star at nightfall, and when morning came the Kingston was alone on the sea. Rackham had taken the precaution, however, of fixing a rendezvous at Mosquito Bank, and thither the Kingston had hastened to wait for Bennett and lie secure from the hue and cry which would be raised from New Providence to the Windward Passage.

  Four days had gone, and Bennett did not come. Rackham had won a temporary respite, for there could be no inquiry into the whys and wherefores of the enterprise’s failure until the whole crew were present, and half of them were still aboard the absent Star. When and if they came there would be a council and Rackham would be required to account for the past and provide for the future. If he failed – and he knew he must – there was an end to his captaincy.

  For he found himself now with only a single influential ally: Penner. If he had hoped for such support as Anne Bonney might have lent him he had been disappointed. That she could have been of considerable assistance he now knew; for strangely enough as Rackham’s stock had fallen hers appeared to have risen with the crew. Now she was their ‘lucky lass’ and hail fellow with the worst on board. Not for her the companionship of Captain Rackham – she made it as plain to the crew as she had done to Rackham himself, and thereby caused much obscene merriment. Whatever befell she at least was safe, for while she moved among the pirates with a boisterous familiarity, she made it plain that she discouraged liberties. She might crack jokes with such a ruffian as Bull, laughing her husky laugh while he grinned and his eyes wandered over the firm breasts beneath the black shirt and the long straight legs booted to the thighs. But Bull knew better to do anything more than laugh and look, for constantly at her elbow, impassive as ever, was Kinsman, cool, watchful and deliberate. The others never knew what to make of him. His ignorance of the sea would have made any other man a butt, but Kinsman was in no such danger, and they kept clear of him.

  Rackham found he could watch them with only a little bitterness: quite plainly Anne saw in Kinsman a protector, and so was content to use him. Rackham had been used the same way, in the hope of profit, and when her use for him had passed he had been discarded. It amused him to think that the same might happen with Kinsman, but he had a feeling that Anne Bonney might find
the discarding more perilous than she supposed.

  He was musing on these lines on the afternoon of the fourth day when Penner joined him on the poop, and the pair of them watched developments in the waist, where Bull, surrounded by a large group of pirates, was haranguing them noisily. Apart from them, lounging by the rail, Anne Bonney sat beneath a rough awning that had been erected for her by the worshipping Malloy. She watched with a lazy smile, one booted leg crossed over the other, nibbling at a tropical fruit and spitting the stones at one of the men – he was hardly more than a boy – who plainly regarded himself as singularly favoured by this attention.

  Beside her stood Kinsman, upright and immaculate even in that broiling heat, and missing no word of the noisy debate.

  It resolved itself into a deputation at last, headed by Bull. They trooped aft to demand that Bennett and his crew be considered lost and that a council be convened forthwith. The unpleasant grin with which Bull delivered himself left no doubt that he was assured what the outcome of that council must be.

  Had Rackham been alone they must have had their way. A denial from him would have exploded the discontent that was brewing; but Penner was a different matter. He could talk, and he was respected up to a point. To hear him, he might have been answering a friendly argument, so easy was his manner, and the result was that he won from them an agreement to wait a day longer. Thereafter – and here Rackham was forced to agree – they would hold a council.

  It was a decision that suited Bull not at all; however, he had no choice but to bow to the will of the majority with a bad grace and retire with his comrades to the waist. There, a moment later, he was deep in conversation with Kinsman and Anne Bonney.

  Pacing slowly up and down at the poop rail, Rackham kept them under observation. They were too far away for him to hear what was passing, but he saw Bull gesticulate twice towards the poop, and heard Anne Bonney’s rich contralto laugh. Kinsman remained silent save for what appeared to be an occasional question put to Bull.

  Penner, who had gone below to the cabin, reappeared and joined Rackham at the rail. He carried a bulky canvas bag which contained such surgical equipment as the Kingston boasted, for since the engagement Penner had been self-appointed surgeon by virtue of a smattering of medical knowledge picked up on his military campaigns and elsewhere. He had been in the habit of visiting the sick in the forecastle twice daily, and it was time for his afternoon round. His eyes fastened on the little group at the rail.

  ‘So dear Davie hasn’t run out of wind yet. God, was there ever such a man for trouble? I wonder now, if I might be better applyin’ me medical talents to him? A small blood-letting, say – about a quart and a half. T’would do him a world of good. What d’ye say?’

  ‘Keep your instruments for the wounded,’ said Rackham. ‘You’ll maybe get a chance at Davie yet.’

  ‘It’s a happy thought,’ said Penner, and stumped down the ladder. As he drew near the group at the rail, they fell silent, but their eyes followed him as he vanished in the forecastle hatchway.

  He was below for half an hour, and the Kingston drowsed in the boiling afternoon. In the waist men slept wherever there was shade, or diced in little groups. There was no breath of air and the green walls of jungle were silent but for the sudden scream of a bird and the continuous drone of insects in the steaming swamps.

  Penner emerged from the forecastle at last, and life seemed to return to the groups in the waist. Rackham was conscious of it, and glanced down to see the Major crossing the deck.

  As he passed the awning beneath which Anne Bonney sat, she called to him, and Penner stopped in mid-stride.

  ‘Where away so fast, Major? Faith, in this weather it makes me sweat to look at you.’

  She had removed her hat and was lying back toying idly with a strand of the red hair that hung to her shoulders, and smiling in lazy amusement at Penner, who stood hesitant. Since the episode of the Star he had avoided her: her abandonment of Rackham had seemed to the Major to savour almost of betrayal. Still, he could hardly ignore her greeting without offence, and offence, he knew, might be impolitic just now.

  ‘We see very little of you these days,’ she went on. ‘You’re grown less gallant than you were, Major. You disappoint me, for I’ve held you as a model to Captain Kinsman here. He’s wanting in the graces himself and I had looked to you to instruct him.’

  Penner perceived himself mocked, and shot a look at Kinsman to see if the saturnine captain was sharing her amusement, but there was no hint of laughter in the adventurer’s cold eyes.

  ‘Aye, changed days,’ murmured Anne Bonney. ‘It was not so in Providence. He used to dance attendance on me like a schoolboy,’ she went on to Kinsman. ‘Handing me to my coach and scowling like a sword-bully at any that as much as bade me good morning.’

  Penner muttered impatiently, and was preparing to turn away when she brought him up short.

  ‘Mind you,’ she went on, and her smile was unpleasant, ‘it’s hard to blame the poor soul when ye think on the bonny vixen he was married to. How came ye into her clutches, Penner? Were you drunk?’

  For a moment Penner stared, shocked by that brutal speech. His anger surged up under the goad of her mocking smile and the guffaw of laughter from her audience. It had been notorious in Providence that the Major’s lady was a shrew and that he had left her after a series of violent exchanges, but to hear her miscalled by this wicked slut was more than he was prepared to bear. He struggled to master his temper, and partly succeeded.

  ‘Good day,’ he snapped, and unwisely added: ‘You’d do better not to miscall a lady who’s your better in everything that makes a woman. I’ll say no more.’

  He was turning on his heel when a hand descended on his shoulder and he spun round to find himself looking into the face of Captain Kinsman.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Kinsman, ‘I think you’ve said too much already.’

  For a moment Penner was too astonished to reply. Then: ‘Go to the devil,’ he said brusquely, and shook off the restraining hand.

  ‘I think not,’ said Kinsman sharply. He moved to bar Penner’s way. ‘I find you offensive,’ he added coldly, ‘to this lady.’ He gestured in Anne Bonney’s direction, and Penner turned to look at her. She was sitting back, a bright flush on her cheeks, and her eyes were glittering.

  ‘Lady?’ Penner exclaimed. He checked a contemptuous laugh, and the look of surprise faded from his face, to be replaced by a questioning shrewdness.

  ‘And just what the devil are ye after, then?’ he demanded, the thickening of his brogue a sure sign that he was losing his temper. ‘Faith, if it’s a quarrel ye want ye might have chosen better cause. Lady, b’God! I wonder what society ye’ve moved in?’

  ‘Now you add offensiveness to me to your other rudeness,’ said Kinsman very softly. ‘I think you must retract that.’

  ‘Do ye though? Hell’s bells, here’s news! Well, ye can think till doomsday and be damned to you! Retract, is it? Go to the devil!’

  Before the words were out of his mouth Kinsman’s left hand cracked like a pistol shot on Penner’s cheek. The Major staggered as much from amazement as from the blow. For an instant he stared open-mouthed, then he snatched at his sword-hilt.

  ‘Ye mincing pimp!’ he roared. ‘By God I’ll cut ye in two!’ and his blade flashed in the sunlight.

  Rackham had watched the beginnings of the quarrel from the poop ladder; now he bounded across the deck and threw himself between the two.

  ‘For God’s sake, Ned!’ He seized the Major’s sword-arm. ‘What the devil are you doing?’

  ‘Leave me loose, by God, and ye’ll see!’ shouted Penner. He wrenched free from Rackham’s grip, but by now there were others between him and Kinsman. ‘Stand away, damn you!’ he shouted. ‘Let me be at him!’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ snapped Rackham. ‘Are ye too blind to see he trapped you into it? Him and that bitch there? Look at her, man, if ye don’t believe me.’

  If Penner had obeyed he would hav
e been reminded, perhaps, of the scene in her husband’s house only a few nights ago, when the tigerish streak of cruelty in her nature was uppermost. She sat smiling with wicked pleasure, but Penner was too enraged to think of anything but his smarting face and Kinsman.

  ‘Will ye fight then, ye lousy coward?’ he shouted. ‘Ye wear a sword and call yourself a soldier! Will ye prove it?’

  ‘Have done,’ said Rackham. ‘He’ll prove nothing, nor will you. There’ll be no blood-letting over this.’

  This was greeted with a roar of protest from the hands and a string of oaths from Penner. In vain Rackham tried to reason with him; it was like talking to a stone wall. He managed to make the Major understand that he was being made the victim of a carefully engineered plot, but Penner’s answer was only: ‘Plot, is it? He’ll plot no more when I’m done with him.’

  Thereafter there was nothing Rackham could do. The pirates, bored with inactivity, insisted that the matter be settled according to sea law, and that the two fight at once. Penner asked nothing more, and Kinsman nodded agreement, so Rackham was forced to submit to the general demand.

  ‘It’s your own life,’ he told Penner bitterly. ‘If ye’re fool enough to fling it away because some poxy dancing-master clouts your ear that’s your affair. But ye’re daft, man, they’re making sport of you.’

  ‘Likely I’ll make sport of them,’ was the grim reply. Penner’s fury was beginning to subside, but his eyes still shone with anger. ‘Perhaps it won’t be my life that’s flung away, neither.’

  At the mouth of the creek in which the Kingston lay a long sand-spit ran out towards the open sea. It was perhaps seventy yards long by ten wide, and since Mosquito Bank offered no other suitable place for a trial at arms Rackham ordered out the boats to carry the contestants and spectators across to it.

  Gleefully the pirates hurried to work, eager for the spectacle, while Rackham looked on gloomily. Obviously Anne Bonney or Kinsman or Bull – perhaps all three of them wanted Penner out of the way. Bull he could understand, for with Penner gone Rackham would be unable to exert any control over the crew, and Bull might be elected to fill his shoes, but what Kinsman’s interest could be was beyond him. Of Anne Bonney he was prepared to believe anything; presumably she was simply using Kinsman as a tool.