Captain in Calico

by George MacDonald Fraser

  And a remarkably useful one he looked, Rackham admitted, when a few minutes later he stood in the fine loose sand of the spit watching the two men prepare for the combat. Around the spit itself, some of them standing knee-deep in the shallows, the crew were laughing and shouting as they wagered on the outcome or called advice. The Kingston had been left deserted save for the wounded; there was no need for a watch, and no one was ready to forgo the unexpected entertainment.

  Rackham’s heart sank as he watched Kinsman remove his coat and roll up his shirt sleeves. He had divested himself of his boots and stockings and rolled up his breeches to give his feet freedom on the loose footing the sand-spit afforded, and now he bound back his long hair with a strip of linen. Lean and vigorous, he looked a formidable opponent even for the best: compared with Penner he was the very picture of a swordsman.

  The chatter and laughter died away as the two men faced each other in the middle of the sand-spit. Kinsman came on guard in a low crouch much favoured by those who delight in spectacular sword-play, and the sight sent Rackham’s spirits soaring, for by adopting that stance Kinsman was sacrificing precious inches of his greater reach. Penner, for all his corpulence, fell easily into the academic guard, presenting his right shoulder to his antagonist. For a moment they stood, the long slim blades glittering between them, the lean, rangy captain and the solid major, eyeing each other and waiting.

  Steel slithered on steel as Kinsman led the attack, sending up little sprays of sand about his feet. His blade leaped in and out, feeling and probing, but everywhere it was met by a guard which turned it with the minimum movement of the Major’s wrist.

  For a full two minutes Kinsman’s onslaught continued, and he succeeded in gaining a yard or so of ground, but Penner continued strictly on the defensive, husbanding his strength until his opponent should tire. The Major could feel the steel-spring toughness of the wrist behind the other’s rapier, and he had every respect for a speed of footwork which showed no signs of flagging.

  Suddenly Kinsman fell back, his point in the high lines, and his body for a second unguarded. It was an open invitation to Penner to lunge, but the Major was too old to be led into the trap, neatly timed though it was. He made as though to launch his point into the opening provided, but the thrust was no more than a feint. He was still perfectly balanced and ready for Kinsman’s swift side-step and attack from the flank which should have found him extended. As it was he caught the other’s point on the foible of his blade, turned it with ease, and lunged full at Kinsman’s unguarded breast.

  Speed and luck alone saved the captain. He pivoted like lightning, but even so he must have been killed if he had not lost his footing and slipped beneath the Major’s blade. As it was, the point caught him on the left ribs, gashing him to the shoulder, but he recovered with one hand on the ground and leaped back before the Major could press home his advantage.

  They faced each other across the bank, Kinsman pale from the shock of the wound which was staining his torn shirt, his left arm covered to the elbow with sand clinging to his sweating skin. Penner, his teeth showing, moved to attack with all his speed, crowding Kinsman back to the water’s edge, calling on every hard-won trick of sword-play to end the fight while he had his man shaken.

  Kinsman’s shirt was red and wet from neck to waist down the left side, sweat flew from his face with every movement as the Major drove in for the kill. Kinsman parried a low thrust by the merest fraction, his guard was open, and Penner struck again. The two figures were caught for a moment as though in a tableau – Penner at full stretch, his whole body behind the thrust: Kinsman erect and poised almost as though offering himself as a target. And then somehow the Major’s point was driving through empty air inches past his opponent’s hip, and Kinsman, without haste, ran him through the body.

  A sudden shout from the pirates died into a hush as Penner staggered away, his hands clasped to his stomach. He swayed, then the strength left his limbs, and he collapsed face down in the sand. He tried to pull himself to his knees, rolled over on to his back, and lay still.

  One of the men behind Rackham spoke, his voice loud in the silence. ‘He’s paid his shot. Ten you owe me, Carty.’

  Rackham ran to the fallen man, but as he knelt at Penner’s side he could see the Major was past help. His face was dead white and drawn, and his teeth chattered as though he were in a fit.

  Rackham slipped his hand beneath the Major’s head and raised it. The dying man opened his eyes: for a few seconds his stare was that of a blind man, then it cleared. His mouth worked as he tried to speak, and a trickle of blood ran out on to his chin.

  ‘Damn you,’ he said huskily, ‘Damn you and rot you, Calico. You – you brought …’

  A spasm shook his body, his eyes closed again, and his cropped head fell back on to the sand. The breaths hissed softly between his lips, growing weaker and weaker.

  ‘An’ I thought the old bastard would spit him like a beetle,’ grumbled a voice. ‘D’ye see it? He had him trussed an’ open; an’ then – whist!’

  ‘That long ‘un’s smart,’ said another, in the complacent tone of a winner. ‘Told ye he would last longer. He’s paid my drink for a day or two, anyways.’

  ‘Rot ‘im,’ said the grumbling voice again. ‘‘Ere, Penner, everyone else has had summat out o’ me, you can too.’

  Someone laughed, and a coin was flipped across in front of Rackham. It tinkled on the sword that had fallen from the Major’s hand, but he did not hear it.

  Rackham stood up. A few yards away Kinsman was sitting in the sand, stripped to the waist, sponging his wound with linen torn from his shirt and dipped in water. Anne Bonney was kneeling at his side chattering her congratulations, while around them stood a little group of interested observers, the more sycophantic loud in their praise of the captain’s sword-play.

  One of them noticed Rackham watching them, and fell silent. The others followed suit, and Anne Bonney looked round. She threw back her head at the sight of Rackham, and there was no attempt to conceal the triumph in her face. Kinsman glanced round, stared briefly at Rackham, and returned to his wound again.

  The sudden silence of the group was infectious. It spread to the others on the bank, and Rackham knew that they were watching him, wondering, knowing that with the death of the man who now lay staring up at the sky a sudden change had been wrought.

  He looked about him at the silent faces, and picked out one in the group beside Kinsman.

  ‘You, Malloy,’ he said. ‘Get spades and see him buried.’

  But Malloy, dullard though he was, sensed the change, and he hesitated. He looked at Bull, and Bull spoke pat as though on cue.

  ‘There’s no call to bury him. The sea’s handy, eh? An’ he’ll know no different whether he goes in sand or water.’ He grinned defiantly at Rackham.

  So it’s come already, thought Rackham. He had no doubt what the issue would be, but he owed it to Penner to stick to his guns.

  ‘I said “Bury him!” I don’t give orders twice, Davie.’

  Bull spat in the sand and laughed. ‘An’ who the hell are you to be givin’ orders at all, eh? Happen we’ve had enough of your orders, like.’ He looked about him, inviting support. ‘Happen the company want a change. Them as doesn’t can bury your pal if they feel like it. For me, he can lay there an’ rot.’

  It came to Rackham suddenly that the one way out was to kill Bull where he stood, and instinctively his hand dropped to his waist. Bull saw the movement and whipped out his own knife, but at that moment Kinsman, who had never looked up during these exchanges, raised his head.

  ‘Wait.’

  Bull stopped in mid-stride.

  ‘Put up your knife.’

  Reluctantly, Bull obeyed, and Kinsman climbed slowly to his feet, his hand holding the pad of linen against his chest. He looked at Rackham, glanced at Penner’s body, and beckoned two of the pirates who stood nearest.

  ‘Bury him.’ His voice was hoarse and his face tired, but his auth
ority allowed of no dispute. ‘The rest of you go back aboard.’

  He turned away, and with Anne Bonney at his side walked slowly to where the boats were beached. Watching them, Rackham knew that whether they held a council or not; whether Bennett came in the next hour or never came at all, the command had already changed hands.

  15. ON THE ACCOUNT

  Yet next morning, when a new commander was elected, it was not Kinsman, who would certainly have received an enthusiastic vote had he not refused to allow his name to go forward.

  ‘I’m no sailor, thank God,’ he replied to the remonstrances of Anne Bonney, who had seen in his election her best hope for the immediate future. ‘There are more ways than one to command. Let them choose our lusty Yorkshireman; I’ve no doubt they can persuade him.’

  This was in reference to Bull, the only other contestant for the command, and since he possessed at least the characteristics of bravery and a vigorous personality, the Yorkshireman was presently ascending to the command of a ship for the first time in his deplorable life while Rackham, now an ordinary member of the crew, stood in the waist and listened to the new captain submitting his plans.

  Bull took the poop in an old blue broadcloth coat which, while it was far too small for him, had the virtue of covering his soiled shirt and breeches to the extent of his elbows and thighs, and served to emphasise his bulk, which was the most commanding thing about him. The addition of a broad-brimmed castor and two incongruously dainty ribbons in his beard, in imitation of the late Captain Teach, completed a striking and distasteful costume.

  There was nothing frivolous about his address, however. They were finished, he told them, with harebrained chases after imaginary argosies; henceforth the Kingston would engage only on sound, practical enterprises which should show handsome profits with the minimum risk. To this end he proposed a cruise along the Cuban coast to the eastward in which they would despoil the coastal villages and such small shipping as plied those waters. He urged the ease with which they should come by loot, food, equipment, and women. He dwelt on this last at some length, knowing that it was a sure card – surer in this case by reason of the unattainable woman on board, whose presence had been making Bull himself increasingly restive. Finally, when they had stripped the coast towards the Windward Passage, they would take to the open sea on the account proper.

  On this he concluded, standing puffed out on the poop deck, awaiting their agreement.

  Rackham, who had listened with growing contempt, was roused from his apathy to the extent of protest. He pointed out that the Windward Passage was the one place in the Caribbean where it would be most inadvisable for the Kingston to venture, since it would certainly be under patrol by King’s ships, particularly now when there would be a hue and cry for the despoilers of the Star. There was a muttered agreement from some of the older hands, and Bull glared down from the poop.

  But for the fact that he needed Rackham as quartermaster, Bull would have felt inclined to deal with him briefly and bloodily on the spot. He scented here an attempt to undermine his new-found authority. Curtly he answered that they need not necessarily sail as far as the passage, but merely in that direction.

  ‘Why sail east at all?’ was Rackham’s reply. ‘Any other course should be less dangerous. And will the returns justify it?’

  Here was a direct challenge on the most important point of all, and Bull knew it. In fact he was none too confident that the coast villages would prove fruitful; the fact that they would be easy of conquest was what had recommended them to him. But he dared not admit it, or there would have been an end to his command before it had begun.

  He spat out an oath. ‘If I though there was no profit d’ye think I’d make the venture? I say there’s dollars an’ women in those villages a-plenty, for them as knows how to look. Them as doesn’t can watch me.’ And he gave an ugly laugh. ‘Anyway, there’ll be better pickin’s than we’ve seen up to now, an’ ye can lay to that. As to the risk, I’ve sailed these waters as long as you, an’ I think the risk’s none so great. So you, or any other that’s too lily-livered, can take yourselves out on the bank yonder an’ stay there to rot.’

  He emphasised his words with a slap of his horny hand on the rail and glared round, inviting contradiction.

  There was none, and Rackham turned away. What, after all, did it matter? He could not doubt that Bull would pay the price of folly sooner or later, and the Cuban coast would do as well as any other.

  Bull, satisfied at having answered opposition with what he supposed was overpowering logic, saw no reason for further delay. Forthwith he gave orders that the Kingston should sail, and shortly after noon the brig was warped slowly from the inlet. By this time, however, the captain had had time for reflection, and he found lurking in his mind a suspicion that perhaps Rackham’s warnings were not entirely unjustified. This served to kindle his fury again, and he stood scowling on the poop as the rhythmic heave of the oarsmen in the ship’s boats drew the Kingston out of her green, tunnel-like haven into the limpid waters of the lagoon.

  Danger he was prepared to face, for there was no room for cowardice among Captain Bull’s varied vices, but the thought of King’s ships was an uncomfortable one; thus it was that as the Kingston slid away from the bank before a light afternoon breeze, he alone aboard felt no uplift in spirits; rather he regretted having lost the comparative safety of their hiding place. His imagination was stimulated by contemplation of what might lie ahead, even when reason told him that there were long miles of empty sea between him and the waters patrolled by the guardians of His Britannic Majesty’s colonies of the west.

  As he stood brooding, Bull’s eye fell on Rackham, who sat precariously perched on the port rail immersed in calculation of the brig’s speed by timing against his own pulse beat the progress of a billet of wood dropped by an assistant in the bows. The sight of the author of his forebodings engaged on a task beyond his own understanding was a double irritation to Bull. He strode across the deck and abruptly demanded the other’s attention.

  Absorbed, Rackham completed his counting before sliding off the rail. Bull eyed him balefully.

  ‘Have ye done, then? Never mind me, like. Ah’s only the bloody captain.’

  Rackham looked at him without emotion. ‘What’s your will?’

  ‘At my service, eh? Much obliged.’ Bull thrust his thumbs into his belt and straddled his feet, pondering the man in front of him.

  ‘Ah’s been thinkin’ of what ye said afore about King’s ships,’ he said at length. ‘Haply there’s summat ye forgot – summat makes hash o’ your argument.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘Ye talked of King’s ships as though they was God Almighty’s Own. If thee’s scared of ’em, like, I don’t wonder. Some’ll scare at their own shadows. Not me, though. Mebbe Ah’s got a longer memory than thee.’

  ‘And what is it you remember?’

  Bull laughed. ‘Just a week since we took a King’s ship board and board. We took her for the loss o’ three men – less the wounded, o’ course. Well, what’s happened once can happen again, can’t it? Mebbe ye hadn’t thought o’ that. Or mebbe—’ his face twisted into an unpleasant grin – ‘mebbe ye was ready to cry down my plans because Ah’s in your room as captain. Eh? Mebbe your tale o’ King’s ships is all bloody wind to scare hands?’

  Rackham looked at him with contempt. ‘If ye choose to think that you’re as big a simpleton as I’ve always thought you.’

  ‘Simpleton, eh? By God, Ah’ll—’

  ‘You prove it when you talk of taking the Star. Is there no difference, then, between taking a ship by trickery, catching her unawares, and engaging with the kind of vessel we’ll find down the Windward Passage waters?’ He laughed. ‘Ye’ll not surprise them. Because they’ll be looking for you. What’s more they’ll be Jamaica Squadron vessels of seventy, eighty guns, carrying crews of ten-year service and more. Where d’ye think you’ll go against them with your thirty lousy guns and Kemp at sea with Benn
ett, God knows where?’

  Bull was stunned into silence, but not for long.

  ‘That’s what thoo says,’ he shouted. ‘An’ who says thoo knows an’ no one else? Eh? Happen Ah can fight a ship as well as Kemp, or thee, or any poxy navy skipper! D’ye doubt it?’

  Rackham checked a blistering retort. ‘If ye don’t doubt it yourself, what matter? You can fight the ship, you say. Fight her, then; fight the whole West Indies fleet. You’re the captain. But unless ye want to drive your head into a noose you’ll be warned in time. Raid the coast, since ye can fly no higher, but put about while we’re still far short of the passage. That way we might still be safe.’

  Bull consigned his warning to hell and beyond. ‘You stick to your lousy charts an’ canvas!’ he bawled. ‘You’re quartermaster, understand? You sail where you’re bid. An’ it’s the captain as does the bidding.’

  On which authoritative note he stamped away, more determined than ever to carry out his plans in despite of the dangers, real or imaginary, which lay somewhere to the east beyond the cobalt waters which slipped rapidly away beneath the Kingston’s keel.

  16. THE KING’S COLOURS

  It was partly a perverse determination to ignore Rackham’s warnings that drove Bull to venture farther eastward along the Cuban coast than he would otherwise have dared to go: that and the fact that the two settlements which the Kingston raided in the first week of her voyage were poor fishing villages hardly worth the looting. It was not an auspicious beginning, and Bull found himself faced with the choice of holding to his course in the hope that something better would turn up, or of yielding to Rackham’s cautions and turning back.