Monday morning the 1st of September 1906. Cork Harbour was bustling with vessels going about their business. Fial anchored the Ghost boldly off Ringaskiddy determined to visit his young son but facing the fact he may have to fight to achieve this. Things are never as they seem and he talked to his crew in detail about counter measures should he be captured. As he pushed off on the longboat and headed for Ringaskiddy church the Ghost fell deathly silent with no movement; nothing stirred on her; even the larder mouse slept quietly in his bulkhead nest. The gunwales were shut, the sails were rolled up and the green flag at her stern dangled straight down for lack of breeze. The inhabitants of Cork came to view the legend as she lay cocooned in the port that had spurned her very existence. A British man of war was tied up at Haulbowline Island no more than half a mile from the Ghost. The crew looked her up and down with a long glass.
Fial tied up adjacent to the King’s Head tavern and looked in to see Evan McTaggert. He warned Fial that British soldiers had been in the area over the last few days and his tavern had been deserted as they questioned everyone in the area. Evan was sure that his son had been taken inland by Angelina's parents who now cared for the child. Fial bid him good day and walked on to the Ringaskiddy rectory and hammered on the door. He did this several times, then looked in the windows but the dwelling was deserted. He decided to access members of the Society to find out where his son had been taken. His allegiance to his son had dulled his faculties and he found himself surrounded by British soldiers, muskets poised at his head. Farnsworth Bovrington stepped forward. He was now a general.
"Fial McMurrin or McGuire, whichever you prefer I arrest you in the King’s name for treason and piracy!"
"I remember your voice," whispered Fial. "You were at my home many years back and took my father!"
"I hope you don't moan as much as your mother when they string you from a yardarm." Fial drew his musket pistol and shot Bovrington in the head at near point blank range. The general fell to the floor dead. He then turned the pistol on the soldier nearest to him cocking the second barrel hammer. The six soldiers accompanying Bovrington looked shocked, stepped back a couple of paces and raised their weapons to eye level.
"Who is the one to be the one to die!" shouted Fial. A quick thinking lieutenant next in command among the soldiers lowered his musket and shot Fial in the leg bringing him down; Fial’s second barrel failed to fire and they set upon him and tied him up.
Fial was taken to the British man of war sitting at Haulbowline Island, the Unicorn and presented to Captain Briscoe on the quarterdeck. Briscoe did not want to look at Fial as he had been on the Dryad as lieutenant when Fial stowed away and he had the greatest respect for him. He eventually had to raise his eyes to look at Fial. Fial now sported a beard down to his upper chest.
"Fial McGuire these are the last circumstances I expected to confront you in. Your crew has abandoned your ship and fled; no one can be located. I will be taking you to Portsmouth where you will be hung from the yardarm of the Victory off the coast where no one can interfere with your execution. The King himself has ordered this be done in the quickest possible time. Admiral Claremont will supervise the execution himself… a terrible waste of what could have been a good man."
"And you are without sin are you Briscoe? I go to my maker with no qualms about what I have done with my life. I just shot the man that killed my father and mother. For me this is a good day. When you go to your maker I hope you feel as I." Briscoe looked down at the deck and then across to the Ghost.
"You have made your mark and your point Fial and for what? Could you have fought for independence with the pen instead of the sword? You are a wise and respected man – people would have listened to you. You have wasted yourself; dead legends are of use to no one."
"When you respond to our views and requests we will have a place in life, until then the dagger is all you understand. I tell you now that daggers are invisible until needed. Never underestimate those who come unannounced."
"Your days of coming unannounced or any other way are over Fial. Take him below and chain him up." Fial was dragged away to the brig and locked in chains. The Unicorn made immediate sail for Portsmouth. A group of twenty seamen with a lieutenant were sent to the Ghost and put her to sail behind the Unicorn.
Lieutenant Walker was enjoying pacing the Ghost and was putting the crew through drills, tacking and weaving at speed to stay behind the Unicorn a day into the voyage, just off the coast of Plymouth. Unbeknown to the crew busy on deck, a floor board in the bottom deck sealing the lower hull moved and a long black finger forced the boards apart, lifting one out of the way, then the next and the next until through the hole climbed an African sailor. Soon ten were below deck helping McGee and Cameron out last. They stood and stretched for a while cramped after being confined for so long. They retrieved muskets, pistols and knives from under the floor and made their way up to the main deck, killing the cook and cabin boy in silence on the way.
Captain Briscoe looked behind him to see how the Ghost was travelling, as he enjoyed watching the lightning fast ship swish past the stern occasionally. The ship was nowhere to be seen. He scanned the horizon all around but still no ship; the crow’s nest was asked to check for the Ghost but still no ship. Walker thought the ship may have gone into Plymouth as that is where Walker came from and he may have wanted to show the booty off to his friends and female companions and still make Portsmouth with them, with the speed of the little ship. Whatever he thought Walker must have had a good reason to break formation.
The Unicorn made Portsmouth by sundown Thursday the fourth of September and Fial was thrown in a room in the round tower. Early on Friday morning he was put in front of an excited Admiral Claremont. Fial stood in chains in front of the Admiral in his bland fortified office and looked straight ahead taking no notice of Claremont.
"Well, well, my hunch was right: blood is thicker than water. You have been outsmarted McMurrin or McGuire or whatever your damn name is. I have signed orders here direct from the King himself that you will be hung from the yardarm of the Victory just off the coast here within sight of land to avoid any problems. A lot of people round here would like to see you go free but they will see you paraded like a dog then strung up, quartered and put on display in the market place. I think your run was pure luck. And you can go to hell. Not so smart now, anything to say Mc whoever?"
"It would appear not, let’s get on with it – you love the sound of your own voice. Careful it doesn't go up a few octaves before the day’s out."
"What do you mean you scoundrel, murderer, enemy of the realm, traitor to the King?"
"Where is this damn ship you want to hang me from?"
"How moving; take him away!"
The streets were silent as Fial was paraded in chains on the back of a horse and cart down to the dock and there she was, the Victory in all her splendour. Fial smiled as he saw her and even as he was dragged up the boarding planks and tied to the main mast in full view of the quarterdeck where Claremont ordered the ship underway. It took an hour for the ship to drop anchor two and a half miles from Portsmouth and around the same distance from Ryde on the Isle of Wight.
She had been at anchor for over an hour while sail was stowed and preparations were then made in the rigging for the execution. Fial was unchained and his hands tied behind his back; he was taken aloft up the centre mast to the mid mast platform. Claremont spoke while a rope was put around Fial's neck.
"We are here in the name of the King and by the order of the King to execute pirate Fial McGuire. Never in the history of the King’s navy has there been such a traitor from its ranks. His body will hang in the market until the flesh rots from his bones as a warning to his kind. No man is above the scrutiny of the King and his realm. I ask there be no mercy on this man’s soul for he..." Claremont's speech was interrupted by a shout from the crow’s nest.
"Ship off the stern under full sail bearing down on us!" was the shout. The Vict
ory was sitting north south with the stern to the south in line with the strong southerly wind. Claremont took a long glass, rushed to the stern of the Victory and studied the bow of the ship heading straight for them. There was only one ship afloat with a dagger as a figurehead and a speed of over nineteen knots: the Ghost of McMurrin. The Ghost was in full sail with the southerly wind and would be upon them in less than ten minutes; nowhere near enough time to prepare for engagement. Claremont shouted orders to man the stern of the ship and prepare to fire upon the Ghost with rail cannon and muskets as she came in range. Fial shouted from the rampart above the main deck to Claremont and his crew.
"You are a fool Claremont, how else would I get the flagship of the British navy in a spot that the dagger could strike beneath her ribs?!" Claremont's eyes glowed with fire as he looked up at Fial. "Now we will see who is shown mercy, for look upon the red flag above the mast of the Ghost!"
Fial pushed the three men guarding him from the platform as their attention was drawn to the approaching foe; they fell to the deck lifeless. Claremont ordered the marines to fire upon Fial on the platform but he withdrew, standing with his back to the mast, and the musket balls could not penetrate the thick platform floor. Four marines began to scale the main mast toward Fial but he had been able to shed the rope from around his neck as it had not been pulled tight, and he kicked rigging and boxes over the edge of the platform hitting the men.
The crew of the Ghost had been told exactly what spot on the Victory to strike: where the stern and bow waterlines meet; the two foot thick oak planks were jointed at the corner. With the Ghost no more than two hundred yards away the quarterdeck gunners of the Victory opened fire on her, all missing the small target area. She turned to port just before hitting the stern of the Victory and delivered a volley to the waterline whilst under immense musket and scatter gun fire from the ship’s marines above. She then turned directly away from the Victory with a hundred degree swing, narrowly avoiding the port side cannons, and made speed south west.
The crew came from under the steel covers when out of range. They were now badly dented and embedded with musket fire but all the crew were unscathed.
The Victory slowly came to life, pulling anchor and dropping sail slowly, gaining speed and heading with the wind towards Portsmouth Harbour, leaking water though a gaping hole in the port stern waterline. The Ghost disappeared from the horizon and attention was again focused on the main mast platform. Six men were sent aloft, gingerly accessing the platform with no resistance from Fial. On reaching the platform they found out why; the platform was covered in blood and he had gone.
The Victory docked in Portsmouth for repairs and when night set in the Ghost revisited the exact spot where she had engaged the Victory. She circled while McGee and Cameron shouted Fial's name through the darkness; within a few minutes there was a faint reply. Fial had floated face up with serious hand injuries from fraying the ropes from his wrists. His leg was also injured. Though the shot when first taken by the British had missed his bones infection had set in; he had also suffered a shoulder injury from a musket ball fired from the foresail platform just before he jumped into the sea.
Bongo had seen him jump just after they had struck at the Victory and he had clung to the stern of the Victory out of sight until she made sail for Portsmouth. He then stayed under water only coming up for air until the ship was out of sight; he then waited in hope. His friends retrieved him and the Ghost vanished into the night.