Devil's Ballast

by Meg Caddy

  Silence fell between them. It had been a long time since Barnet had spoken of Henry Avery. A headache roared through his skull.

  Rogers sat forward and dipped a quill. ‘Very well, Captain Barnet. You will have what you require.’

  18

  BONNY

  Darling and the crew of the Jeremiah and Anne sailed out of Havana a month and a half later on a bleak Friday. I could feel a storm in the air but Darling just laughed, gave me a scratchy kiss on the cheek, clasped Read’s hand, and left us. I wanted badly to be on that ship. Any ship. I wanted the tip and swing of the deck beneath my feet. The strong, sharp smell of tar and the gentle musk of wood. Even the cramp and the heat would be preferable to being stuck on land with a baby in my belly.

  I leaned on Read as he helped me up the path and into town. Once I would have minded but now I would take any small comfort available. A storm was coming, yes, but for now the air was thick and my collar was damp with sweat. I was constantly thirsty and constantly waddling to the privy. Everything ached. The babe played merry hell with my appetite and sleep.

  ‘Why would any woman ever go through this more than once?’ I muttered between my teeth.

  ‘Not long now,’ he returned and I shot him a filthy look.

  ‘That’s not helpful.’

  ‘What would be helpful?’

  Calico. Calico would be helpful. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, then.’

  ‘Shut up, Read.’

  He smiled and we walked the rest of the way to the Cunninghams’. Rose greeted us at the door, a worried frown on her freckled features. Her chubby hands were dusted with flour and there was a streak of white on her cheek. She gave Read a tight-lipped smile and closed the door in his face as soon as I was inside.

  ‘I don’t like him,’ she said, just the same as she did every time. ‘Jack wouldn’t, either.’

  ‘Jack’s not here,’ I said, as if any of us needed that reminder.

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again. I didn’t ask her what was on her mind. If it was important she would tell me, and if it wasn’t I didn’t have the patience for it. I passed her and went to my small room. It was getting harder and harder to sink down to the pallet on the floor and then pick myself up again but I wasn’t going to whine. I could complain to Read all I wanted, but I wasn’t going to push it too far with the Cunninghams. They were good people. They would take care of the baby, raise it proper and true—something I couldn’t say for anyone else I knew. If they decided for whatever reason that they didn’t want it, I didn’t know where I’d turn.

  ‘What will you do if Calico doesn’t come back for you?’ Rose was leaning against the doorframe, wiping her hands on her apron. She’d make a good mother, I thought. She didn’t have much in common with my mother, who had been bony and sharp, but they shared the same strong will and clear eyes.

  ‘I’ll find a ship,’ I shrugged.

  ‘Without him?’

  ‘I’m not staying on shore.’ And then, because I knew it would irritate her: ‘I’m sure Read could help me.’

  Rose shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t trust him, Anne,’ she said. ‘He was sailing with Barnet all that time…’

  ‘And if he’d wanted to, he could have left me with Barnet. Or he could have turned me in himself and demanded a reward from the governor, or from my husband, or my father, or whoever else wants me dead or captured. If Calico doesn’t come back for me, I’ll get Read’s help and I’ll be out of your hair before the baby sees its first year out.’

  ‘I’m not trying to make you feel unwelcome.’

  ‘Can you not-try a little harder then, please?’

  I was trying not to be so vexing, but I couldn’t seem to help it. The sticky heat, my stomach cramping and the baby turning inside of me. A particularly sharp wrench made me curse and reach for the wall. Rose caught my arm instead. I met her gaze. Her eyes were wide, the freckles standing out on her pale cheeks.

  Another wrench and then I knew.

  ‘Oh,’ I said weakly. ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘Walter!’ Rose shouted out of the room. ‘Walter, go for the midwife!’

  He went. Rose brought cool, fresh water and a cloth for my brow. I sank down onto the pallet and it was all so heavy I thought I’d never get up again. Rose crouched by me, her hands on my shoulders. I wanted to push her away but instead I leaned forward and pressed my head against her. It was hard to breathe. I was tearing apart.

  Then it was just noise and blood and the stifling heat of the room, and I fell back so far into the pain and the fear and the thought of Calico that I lost all sense.

  I stood at the docks, listening to the water underneath. It was black and sparkling, taking the light from ship lanterns and torches on the jetties. It was quiet here so early in the morning, before the sun could even think of rising. No sailors, no pirates, no one but me and the water.

  ‘Where’s the father?’ The midwife, her hands at my shoulders, tipping something down my throat as I struggled and gagged.

  ‘At sea.’

  I had always wondered what it would be like to die at sea.

  Blood and pain.

  I couldn’t go home. My father had disowned me. The pain from that wound was still fresh. I couldn’t leave Nassau because what ship would take me? What ship would be safe? New Providence was a prison and Nassau was the oubliette, the pit, the place people went to forget and be forgotten.

  Blood and pain.

  I had run out of options.

  Blood and pain.

  Footsteps sounded along the jetty. It creaked and groaned and I was so sure my husband stood behind me. I felt like the water was rising up around my throat, even though I was still on dry ground.

  ‘What do you want, Jim?’

  ‘Who’s Jim?’

  I turned and there he was.

  A long, thin cry.

  ‘There we are,’ Rose said, not talking to me or the midwife or anyone much. ‘There we are, oh there you are. Little man, little man.’ She was crying and for a moment I thought that was it, the baby was dead, it was over. But then the pressed wail came again and through bleary eyes I saw Rose sit and sob, a small bundle in her arms.

  ‘He’s beautiful,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, he’s beautiful.’

  ‘Jack,’ I croaked. A sob pulled through me but I was too tired to give it voice. I tried to sit up but the midwife pushed me back down with her firm hands and I didn’t have the strength to do anything about it. The baby cried and Rose cried as well. The midwife cleared up around me. She said something and pulled at the sheets around me. I felt like I was underwater, my senses blurred and thick. The baby kept crying and Rose kept saying he was beautiful. I was drenched in sweat.

  ‘Jack,’ I said again and I wasn’t even sure if the sound came out.

  Rose’s face appeared in front of mine. Her eyes were red. ‘It’s a little boy,’ she whispered. ‘What should we call him?’

  My lungs ached. ‘Jack,’ I said one last time. The world was thick and foggy. I had been clinging to consciousness but now it slipped away from me. I settled into an uneasy sleep with no dreams.

  19

  BONNY

  Our baby was small and wrinkled, all red and red-headed. The hair was the only thing of mine he had inherited as far as I could tell but all babies looked much the same to me. He grizzled, grunted, made those strange little sounds that are so particular to babies. He had a good, healthy set of lungs and he used them to full effect every few hours. Had a temper, too.

  He was perfect in every way, except that he was mine.

  Rose and Walter were in love. They had to bring Johnny back to me to feed, at least until they found a wet-nurse, but other than that they took turns cradling him and singing to him. They called him John Arthur Cunningham. Johnny or Jack. I didn’t mind the name but it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d hated it. It wasn’t my decision. He was theirs now, and in just a few months I would leave their house. I would go back to the water, someho
w. Even if it meant going alone.

  Even as I tried to make plans without him, my mind was on Calico. I wanted him, just once, to hold his son, to see his eyes reflected back in the baby’s sleepy blink. More selfishly, I wanted to hold the wretched man close and stop him from leaving me again. I got tangled in these thoughts and there wasn’t much to pull me away from them.

  I sat in my room one hot afternoon, sweaty and stifling, while Johnny fed. It had been a quiet, dull morning and both Rose and Walter were outside. Rose was shelling peas and Walter was gutting fish. I craved the push of the breeze but their company was stifling after so long. I was too tired and restless to go out and join them. I resolved to make myself move as soon as the afternoon rains came. I would go out and stand in the weather awhile, letting it wash out the feeling that I was being smothered.

  Johnny snuffled and whined. I held him against my shoulder, readjusted my clothes, and patted him up and down the back. He obliged with a belch and I settled him in my arms once more. I knew I should take him out to Rose and Walter right away but I couldn’t bring myself to stand and relinquish him. Not just at that moment.

  ‘Don’t you grow up to be a pirate,’ I whispered to him. ‘You keep your legs on land, right? It’s much safer.’ I stroked his carroty hair back with one hand.

  ‘Don’t go filling his head with nonsense, now.’

  If I had been a more skittish woman I would have dropped the baby. As it was I went still, my arms tightening about him. I lifted my head.

  Calico. He tried to smile, but it faltered and faded. He stepped forward, an anxious crease in his brow.

  ‘I wanted to be here for the birth,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘I wanted to be here, Annie. I’m sorry you had to be alone.’

  He was thinner than I remembered. His clothes had more patches in them and he was unshaven. It looked like he had been sailing hard, living on rough waves. But his eyes were still the same, that magnificent blue, chasing any doubts I might have had. I had to remind myself of the baby in my arms. I stood, still holding Johnny close to me. I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Calico,’ I breathed at last.

  He took a step closer. I reached across and grabbed his hand. It was rough and warm and I pulled him in so we were only separated by the baby between us.

  ‘I only missed you by a day,’ I said. My throat was tight and swollen and it was hard to get any words out. ‘One day, Calico.’

  ‘Walter told me. We couldn’t stay. Barnet was still hunting. His people were looking for us. We lost the Kingston, Annie. We lost it, and we lost you, and we couldn’t take any more chances.’ He touched my face. ‘We didn’t even know if you were alive. I came to Walter on the off-chance that you found your way here.’

  I pressed a kiss to his lips. Alive. He was alive and he was here. He tipped his head down and leaned his brow against mine. I would have given way to tears if we stood like that a moment longer so I stepped back and cleared my throat, holding Johnny up like an offering.

  ‘Your son,’ I said.

  Calico took him. He looked stiff and uncomfortable with the baby but a small smile crept across his features.

  ‘He looks like you,’ he said.

  I returned the smile. ‘I was going to say the same thing.’

  20

  BARNET

  Barnet spent the better part of eight months scouring the waters for John Rackham and his crew. They always seemed to slip away from him, always seemed to be riding the crest of the next wave. But he was a patient man, and after months of waiting his patience paid off.

  The Albion cut through the water, her bow mended and her hull careened. She was on the hunt. They had intercepted a message run by a merchant coming out of Cuba. The contents were obscure but Barnet had read the meaning well enough. The woman Bonny was still in Havana, and she was calling for her man Calico to come and claim her. Barnet had felt a moment of vicious triumph. He had no need to pursue Jack Rackham after all. He just needed to return to Havana and wait. If he had learned one thing from the woman Bonny, it was that she was adept at twisting men to her will. She had corrupted Martin Read easily enough. He did not doubt for a moment that eventually Rackham would come for her. Barnet would be waiting when that happened.

  The ocean was becoming smaller for pirates; they were being harried off the waves. Once the pirates had been able to sail without fear into Charles Town, Port Royal, Nassau. Now they had to slink through the darkness, where their kind belonged. In order to catch the pirates, Barnet knew he had to occupy their minds. He was canny enough to know they would not dock in the main harbour so instead he took to the beaches, the coves, the rocky corners of the coast. Secluded bays where pirates and smugglers scurried in and out of caves with their wares.

  He obscured the escutcheon of the Albion and took down the flags. He flew a simple black instead. It galled him to even make the pretence of piracy but he knew it was necessary. So he waited. The crew scrubbed each inch of the ship and careened her, burning off weed and prying away the barnacles. Calico Jack sailed an old ship but she was always well maintained. Barnet had each of the weapons tested. They restocked and found crewmen to replace those they had lost along the way. And they waited. Waited for the familiar sails of the Ranger to come in. Barnet emptied his own coffer bribing dock workers to keep him informed.

  Finally it paid off. Someone sent word that the Ranger had been sighted to the west of Havana. She had been there for a few days.

  Barnet sent men out to scout the area. They came back with information that the Ranger was careening… but that her captain was nowhere to be seen. Barnet gave the orders and they set out west, tacking along the coast until they caught sight of the familiar vessel. Barnet’s heart sped. He gripped the rail, knuckles whitening. Even from a distance he could tell the ship was in no state to fight. There were crewmen sitting in the rigging and others out on the shore drinking. There was a good fire going on the shore and Barnet could hear the raucous shouts and laughter over the sound of the waves.

  Before the pirates even realised, the Albion was upon them.

  Barnet fired off two shots, both damaging the bow. Neither shot would sink the ship but they made the point. Reparations for the damage the Albion had sustained. Barnet’s men armed themselves.They stormed the Ranger. There were only three men on board and they were drunk. The pirate hunters took the ship without resistance.

  Then they went in to shore. Barnet stood on the jolly-boat, his musket pointed at the pirates. Some fought but others fled across the beach. Barnet had anticipated this. The additional men Governor Rogers had supplied came out at them from the scrub and the trees. Gunshots cracked across the still air. Three pirates fell.

  ‘Stop!’ As the jolly-boats came into shore, Barnet could hear one of the pirates bellow the order out to the others. ‘Surrender!’

  The pirates tried to duck around their attackers and run for the woods but they were cut off before they could reach the tree line. More fell. The governor’s men herded the pirates to the edge of the water and Barnet met them there. He stepped out of the jolly-boat, into the water. He schooled his features to wipe the smile from his lips.

  ‘Where is your captain?’ he demanded.

  ‘We killed him.’ It was a slave who spoke, bold as a freeman, his eyes direct on Barnet. ‘A mutiny, two weeks ago.’ A skinny boy nodded his agreement.

  Barnet glanced at one of his own men. ‘Beat them,’ he said.

  The slave fought but it wasn’t long before he was on his knees, then on the ground. The skinny boy folded as a man punched him in the ribs, then kicked him to the floor. He cried out, blood spurting from his nose.

  Barnet kept the musket ready, his eyes sweeping across the rest of he crew. ‘Shall we try again?’ he asked. ‘Where is your captain?’

  Silence. Barnet steeled himself. He was a hunter, and pirates were his quarry. They lived in defiance of God and the law. They could die the same way. He twitched his gun to the side and shot one of the oth
er pirates, who fell to his knees, blood flowering around the hand he pressed to his belly. Then he slumped forward into the sand, twitching. Someone let out a sharp cry. The slave stiffened, eyes wide. Barnet reloaded the musket. He did not hurry.

  ‘This is the last time I ask,’ he said. ‘Where is your captain?’

  The pirates looked at one another. Barnet shot another man and let the noise wash across the beach. He reloaded again and pointed the gun at the skinny boy.

  ‘Stop. Stop!’ A freckled lad stepped forward, put himself between the hunters and the other two pirates. ‘Stop. He’s in Havana! He went there after some girl!’

  ‘Harwood—’

  ‘He’ll find out anyway! He’ll kill us all if we don’t tell!’

  Barnet held up a hand and the men left the slave alone. ‘Where in Havana?’

  ‘We don’t know. Somewhere near the docks. He’s coming back tonight.’ The freckled lad bent and helped the other young one up. Another went for the slave, stumbling under the dark man’s weight. ‘He’ll be back tonight.’

  ‘Then we shall wait for him.’ Barnet turned to his own crew. ‘Take them back to their own ship. Keep the lanterns glowing. Rackham must not suspect anything.’

  ‘Where are you going, sir?’ It was the cabin boy, Oliver, who spoke up. Stepping beyond his station. Barnet would have time to check that once this was over.

  ‘Into Havana,’ he said. ‘I am taking no chances this time.’ He turned to Rogers’ men. ‘Kill five more. Then we move out.’

  The smell of blood and gunpowder filled the air.

  21

  BONNY

  It was crowded in the house with Calico but no more so than on a ship. At night he slept with his arms wrapped around me and I rested better than I had in seven months. It was strange to play house with him. Strange and nice. I could almost forget there was a crew to consider, that there was a pirate hunter scouring the seas for us.