Tall, spare and active in spite of the greying hair at his temples, he had the air of one completely masterful and self-possessed. The light from the slender candles threw into relief his prominent nose and high cheek-bones; in spite of an expression which was naturally severe and the puckered scars where a Spanish musket-ball had shattered his jaw he was not unhandsome. His mouth was large and generous and his grey eyes startlingly bright against his weather-beaten skin. They ranged briefly now over the tall figure before him.
‘Your name?’
The big man shifted his weight on to his other foot and said easily: ‘John Rackham.’
Woodes Rogers’ eyes opened a little wider and then he pushed the candlebranch away very deliberately and repeated the name.
‘John Rackham. Also known as Calico Jack.’
The big man smiled faintly and nodded. ‘So they call me,’ he said, with a touch of pride in his voice.
Master Dickey was conscious of a certain coolness on his spine which was not caused by the night air. Of course he knew the name, as he knew the names of ‘Blackbeard’ Ned Teach and Stede Bonnet and every other freebooter of note in the Caribbean waters. But it was one thing to know the name and quite another to be sitting within a few paces of the man himself and to recall that only a few moments earlier he had been trying conclusions with him in a darkened room with an unloaded pistol.
This Rackham, he recalled, had been one of the pirate brotherhood at New Providence in those fateful days when Woodes Rogers had brought his ships to the island and sent in his proclamation demanding their surrender with the promise of Royal pardon for all who complied. And Rackham had been quartermaster to the pirate Charles Vane who fired on Rogers’ ships and fought his way out of the harbour, since when there had been a price on the heads of Vane, Rackham, and the rest of their ship’s company. That was two years ago, and in that time Vane’s notoriety had spread from end to end of the western seas. There had been his exploit against the Spanish silver fleet in the Florida Gulf and talk of a great treasure taken – the heat with which the Spaniards’ protests had been urged at St James’ was proof to a knowledgeable world of the blow their pockets must have suffered, and Vane’s stock had mounted accordingly.
Of Rackham himself little was known by comparison, and Master Dickey cast back mentally in search of anything he had heard. He thought he recalled the fellow’s seamanship being highly spoken of, and he had something of a reputation as a gallant, too. There had been some mention of a woman whom he was to have married in New Providence before he and Vane had fled … Master Dickey could not be sure. But for the moment his very presence was sensation enough and Master Dickey felt a not unpleasant excitement once his first surprise had settled.
Woodes Rogers, his voice as level as ever, said:
‘I must suppose there is some reason why you should thrust your head into a noose by coming here. For that is what you have done, you realise?’
Rackham’s smile faded, but he gave no other sign of apprehension.
‘If I’d thought that, I’d not be here. I’ve no wish to decorate a gibbet yet awhile, though I can understand your Excellency’s haste to find one for me. You see me on an errand of mercy, or rather an errand of pardon, which in this case you may think the same thing.’
Woodes Rogers sat back in his chair, staring, and then his brows contracted in an angry frown. ‘Pardon? Do I understand that you come here seeking that? You, that for two years have been at large as a pirate, with a price on your head? By God, ye deserve to hang for insolence, if nothing else.’ He made a gesture of impatience. ‘I must suppose that you are as great a fool as you are a knave if you imagine I’ll talk to you of pardons. I have a sharp medicine for pirates, Master Rackham, as you’ll find, and it is not compounded of pardons but of hemp. Dickey, call me the guard.’
Rackham stared at him for a second, then shrugged and smiled crookedly. ‘As ye please,’ he said. ‘If ye’re bent on losing a fine ship and a hundred prime seamen for the King’s service it’s your own affair. Call them in and have done.’
‘What’s this?’ Rogers came round the table to confront the pirate. ‘What ship’s this?’ He waved Master Dickey back to his chair.
Rackham answered confidently: ‘My brig, the Kingston, with my lads aboard. Did ye suppose I swam to Providence?’
There was a moment of dead silence, and Master Dickey watched fascinated the two men facing each other by the table. Somewhere out in the darkness of the sea beyond the rollers washing against Hog Island was a ship manned by desperate men, and Tobias realised that Rogers was faced with a remarkable and difficult situation. Rogers was realising it too.
He put his hands behind him on the edge of the table and leaned against it.
‘Where is she?’ he asked.
‘Offshore.’
Rogers’ eyes narrowed. ‘I’ve a mind to squeeze it out of you,’ he said.
‘You could try,’ said Rackham. ‘And, as I said, ye could lose a ship to the King’s service. To say nothing of the men.’
That was the point. Rogers’ commission to suppress piracy was of no greater importance than his duty to maintain a force of privateers for the safety of British possessions and the enrichment of the Treasury. Hence a pardoned pirate enlisted as a privateersman was a double gain to the government. Suddenly the situation was utterly simple: a hundred outlaws seeking pardon on the one hand, and Governor Rogers, holding the power to pardon, and urgently requiring crews for his privateers, on the other. Both stood to gain and there was nothing to lose. It was all so convenient that Rogers distrusted it instinctively. Why, he wondered, this sudden zeal for an honest life on the part of a crew of scoundrels? Rogers had been next door to a pirate himself, he knew the pros and cons of life on ‘the great account’, and he knew that not since the days of Modyford and Morgan had the filibusters enjoyed such a fruitful harvest as now. With men and ships urgently needed for the fleets in European waters the Caribbean squadrons were stretched to their uttermost, and piracy was as safe as it could ever hope to be. And none would know that better than Calico Jack Rackham. This was not one who would exchange piracy for privateering without some powerful motive, and it was imperative for Rogers to discover what that motive was.
‘We’ll leave the whereabouts of your brig for the moment. Be sure I shall find it when I desire.’ The Governor walked slowly round the table to his seat. ‘Of this request for pardon by yourself and your followers – you’ll do me the credit to suppose that it is not prompted by sudden reformation. Perhaps you will supply me some reason. Your own, personally.’
Rackham’s answer was prompt. ‘Two years ago, just before you came to Providence, I was to have married – a lady here, in this town. You’ll mind that in those days I was quartermaster to Vane, who then commanded the Kingston. He refused the pardon, ye’ll remember, and fired on your vessels as they entered harbour. As bad luck had it, I was aboard, and willy-nilly I must sail away with him. I had wanted that pardon – by God I had wanted it.’ He leaned forward as he spoke, and his dark face was suddenly grim. ‘But there it was. Every man aboard the Kingston was outlaw from that day forward, or so we supposed. Myself with the rest. But things have altered over two years. Vane is gone, and Yeates, too – it was Yeates that touched off the first gun against you in the harbour fight. And so, when I heard a few weeks back from a friend who had lately been in Providence that my lady was still unwed – for I’d never heard of her in those two years – the notion took me that perhaps the pardon might not be out of reach after all. I thought that if the law will let bygones be bygones, well, I might pick up where I left off.’ He gave a deprecatory shrug. ‘Provided she’s of the same mind as she was two years gone. When she learns how it fell out, I think she will be.’
Woodes Rogers studied him with interest. ‘She must have considerable attractions,’ he mused. ‘Who is she?’
‘Her name is Sampson,’ said Rackham. ‘Kate Sampson. Her father has plantations –’ he broke off a
t the sudden clatter as Master Tobias’s pounce-box fell from his table, dislodged by the little lawyer’s uncontrollable start. And in turning in the direction of the interruption, Rackham did not see the colour drain abruptly from Rogers’ face at the mention of that name. When he looked back again the Governor had one elbow on the table and his face was shaded by his hand.
‘You’ll know him,’ Rackham concluded. ‘An honest little man.’
Woodes Rogers did not reply, but he rose abruptly and walked over towards Dickey’s desk. There he stopped, as though undecided, his back to Rackham, looking over Dickey’s head towards the windows. The lawyer, glancing at his face from the corner of his eye, saw it strained and ugly, and when the Governor spoke again, his voice was unusally hard.
‘That explains your own reason. What of your followers?’
‘We put it to a vote; the majority were for coming in. The others had the choice of coming or not, as they pleased, but they fell in with the rest of us.’
‘Why?’ snapped Rogers. ‘Surely some must have preferred to find employment with another pirate captain?’
‘With twenty thousand pounds’ worth of silver in the Kingston to share when they get shore with a Royal pardon under their belts?’ Rackham was amused. ‘Not they.’
Rogers wheeled on him like lightning. This time he made no attempt to conceal his stupefaction. ‘What did you say?’ His voice was strained with disbelief.
‘Twenty thousand pounds of silver,’ Rackham repeated. ‘Taken from the Spaniards in the Gulf of Florida. There was more, but it’s gone now. Still, they look to what’s left to see them snugly provided for ashore.’
Rogers for once was at a loss to preserve his calm. ‘Are you mad?’ he burst out. ‘D’ye suppose for a moment they’ll be permitted to keep it? God’s light!’ He wheeled on Dickey. ‘Was there ever such effrontery? They’ll have the pardon, will they, and keep their plunder too?’
‘Spanish silver,’ corrected Rackham. ‘Plunder if you will, but the British Crown has no right to it.’
Rogers bridled like an angry cat. ‘Will you talk to me of right?’ He strode forward, glaring at Rackham. ‘Listen, listen but a moment, Master Pirate.’ It was all he could do to speak coherently, so great was his rage. ‘That silver, or any other loot you may have, is forfeit to the King. That you will understand now. By God, I marvel at you! I do, as I live! Do you know where you stand, or must I inform you? I’ll see you and your crew of mangy robbers sunk and damned before you’ll have one penny of that silver, aye, and I am Woodes Rogers that say it! You seek the pardon, you say. Then, by heaven, you’ll sail your brig into this port, silver and all, and surrender every ounce, or you’ll not only see no pardon, I’ll have every man-jack of you sun-dried in chains.’
Any normal man’s composure would have been shattered by that tirade, but Rackham simply shook his head. ‘They’ll never agree,’ he protested. ‘I feared ye might bilk at letting them keep all, but a portion …’
‘Not a penny.’ Rogers’ voice was suddenly dreadfully soft. ‘And when you tell me they’ll refuse and sail away I’ll remind you that there is one who will not sail with them, and that one is yourself. You thought my need for privateers so urgent, I suppose, that I should be forced to grant you pardons on your own terms. You learn your error. Not that you’ll profit by it. For I intend to do what I proposed at first: I’ll have the position of your ship and aught else I need to know wrung from you before the hour is out.’
Master Dickey had never seen him in such a venomous rage, and looked to see the pirate shrink appalled. But although Rackham must have known the danger in which he stood his voice was steady.
‘Myself I don’t care what becomes of the silver. That’s my crew’s demand, not mine. I …’
‘So you say now,’ sneered Rogers. ‘In effect it does not matter. I have the means at hand to possess myself of your ship, your men, and your silver. For that last the government can afford to forgo your hundred prime seamen. They’ll hang very neatly in a row, yourself among them.’
The very confidence in the Governor’s voice, its jeering note, stung Rackham as his threats had not been able to do.
‘You’ll pay a rare price for it, then,’ he retorted. ‘Aye, you may do as you please with me, but if you think to catch those lads of mine napping you must have forgotten all you learned in the South Sea. Did I come here unprepared, d’ye think? Why, there are men of mine in the town at this moment, and unless I’m back with them within the hour that brig of mine will be hull down and away before you can even force me to tell you where she lies, much less get your bum-boats out of harbour and after her.’ His lip curled in a grin of vindictive triumph. ‘And if by chance ye closed with her, how many of those precious men of yours would live to bring her to port? You’ll find the price of silver marvellously high, supposing you get it.’ He laughed contemptuously. ‘And ye know ye won’t. For they’ll fight till she sinks under them, and the dollars will be as far as ever from the King’s pocket.’
Now this was the stark truth and Rogers knew it. But for the anger which had possessed him he must have known that the threats he had spoken were empty ones. He should have realised it, but his mind had been further distracted by that name – Kate Sampson – a moment before. That and the sudden revelation of the fortunes which these rascals possessed had upset the normal balance of his reasoning. For a moment he stood, grimly silent, then he paced back to his chair and sat down.
‘You would give much for this pardon, would you not?’
‘Ye know I’d not be here else.’
‘And a moment since you told us that the silver meant nothing to you. As I see it, you would have no need of it, since the lady you intend to marry’ – his tone hardened imperceptibly – ‘is well provided for.’
‘That’s not why I seek her, but it’s so – yes.’
‘Then I see no reason why we should not reach an arrangement that will suit us both,’ said Rogers evenly. ‘In return for the surrender of your brig and its cargo I shall grant you a pardon.’ He paused and Rackham looked at him in bewilderment.
‘But the crew …’
Rogers’ lips moved in what was almost a smile. ‘They need not concern us. At least they do not concern me, and I cannot suppose that they concern you.’
‘D’ye mean you expect me to betray them?’
Rogers displayed impatience. ‘Come, man, you are not a schoolboy. I’ve seen as much and more of thieves than you, and I never yet found honour enough among them to cover a flea-bite. Are you different from the rest? If so, you can carry your principles higher yet – to the gibbet. For it’s there I’ll send you – not to-morrow, or the day after, but now, and take my chance of finding your brig.’ He paused deliberately. ‘So choose. A pardon or a rope.’
Rackham stared at him and suddenly exploded in an exclamation of impatience.
‘There’s no way it can be done,’ he protested. ‘Ye cannot have me go back and tell them you’ve agreed to grant them pardons and they can keep their silver, and then cheat them at the last. Your own credit would be dead for ever, with honest men as well as rogues. And if I was to be the betrayer, and gave you the ship’s position now, and ye took them and the treasure, what use would your pardon be to me? It would be a death warrant, for when it was known I’d sold them they’d have a knife in my back before I could wink.’
Rogers was contemptuous. ‘It would not be known. What I propose would be among the three of us.’ He gestured to include Master Dickey. ‘Well?’
Rackham considered him through narrowed lids. ‘What becomes of my crew?’
‘Unless they are extremely rash, no harm at all. Provided, that is, that the plan I have in mind is carried through precisely as I shall direct.’ Rogers rose, a lean, commanding figure. ‘That will depend on you as much as on any.’ He moved round the table, halting face to face with Rackham. ‘Can you hesitate?’ He laughed shortly. ‘If so, you are a greater fool than I take you for, or else you carry scrup
les to an odd length. Farther than I should carry them myself. For I’d not hang for the sake of a pack of brigands.’
He knew, of course, that there could be only one answer for Rackham, or for anyone in the same position. The pirate hooked his thumbs into his belt and considered the Governor. ‘Let me hear,’ he said.
It was tantamount to an acceptance, and Rogers propounded his plan as a commander issues instructions.
‘It will be very simple. You will return to these men of yours in the town. Tell them my terms were unconditional surrender of themselves and the treasure; tell them that when you refused I would have tortured and hanged you and taken the Kingston by force. But you escaped, and now nothing remains but to fly to sea. This should satisfy them. Now, listen. You and your men in town will then return to the Kingston this evening, so giving me the day in which to make my preparations, for which I’ll need the exact position at which the brig is to take you aboard. I take it you came ashore in a small boat, and the Kingston is to stand inshore to take you off.’ Without pausing for a reply he swept on. ‘When she does, I shall be ready for her. I shall have a cutting-out force at hand – a ship and longboats. It will be so strong that there can be no question of resistance on your part. If perchance there are some hotheads ready to fight you will dissuade them. But I doubt there will be. Then you will surrender, and the terms will be a pardon for those who lay down their arms. In the circumstances your crew should be too relieved to fret over the loss of their plunder.’
He had been pacing up and down as he spoke. Now he stopped and went back to his seat. ‘Of course, it will not do for you to leave here to-night as easily as you came. You will escape, and, as I say, take back to your friends a tale of a bloody-minded Governor who would have hanged you and swore to hunt them down. You may think that such a tale will be at variance with the offer of pardon that I shall make you when the Kingston is at my mercy to-night. On the contrary it will be seen then that I serve the King’s interests by such an offer, since it assures me of the treasure, a ship, and a hundred excellent seamen. They may think me an infernally clever fellow to have found them out, but I enjoy some such reputation already. Certainly they will not suspect you.’