Freebooter

by Tim Severin

  The skiff was soon close enough for him to look down and see the pattern of scars on Jezreel’s scalp, a legacy from his days as a prize-fighter. The big man was still facing over the stern of the skiff as he rowed, unaware of the presence of his friends so close by. Only when the skiff bumped against the jetty and Jezreel put down his oars, turned, picked up a rope and got ready to throw it, did he look up and saw his two friends waiting there. They had been expecting a smile, but instead saw an expression of relief. ‘Thank God, you’re here!’ he called up, then threw the rope for them to catch.

  There was a pause while the skiff was made fast and Jezreel held the little boat steady against the bamboo pilings so that the man in the stern could clamber up onto the dock. Hector presumed he was the sloop’s captain and looked at him with interest. He saw a handsome, athletic man in his early forties who wore his long dark hair tied back at the nape of his neck with a black silk ribbon. A short moustache was carefully trimmed and combed, and his beard came to a neat point. The well-cut frock coat of deep blue broadcloth had silver buttons and its fashionably long pocket flaps were edged in silver lace. Slightly sea-stained white stockings and breeches, buckled shoes, and a rapier hanging from an embossed leather baldric completed his dress. Hector, aware that a rapier was far less use aboard ship than a cutlass, wondered why the newcomer had chosen to create such a swashbuckling impression.

  The newcomer nodded politely as he stepped round them and began walking briskly into the settlement. It was evident that he knew his way.

  ‘Greetings, you great ox!’ Jacques exclaimed, slapping Jezreel on the back as he heaved himself up on the jetty. ‘Chased away from England again! What was the reason this time? Your missus asking why you’d abandoned her for so long?’

  Jezreel shook his head, his brief grin of pleasure replaced by a more earnest look. Addressing Hector, he asked, ‘Is there somewhere we can talk privately?’

  ‘Of course. We can go to the house where we have our lodgings.’

  St Mary’s only street was the unpaved track that traced the curve of the foreshore. On one side was the gently sloping beach where a dozen native dugout canoes were drawn up on the sand. Opposite, a ragged line of mismatched buildings looked as though they had been thrown up wherever someone had chosen to cut back the encroaching vegetation. The only large and substantial structure was Baldridge’s warehouse strategically placed nearest to the bamboo jetty. Its walls were built of stone blocks cut from the coral reef, and there were imported tiles on the roof. The other buildings were constructed in the native style with mud brick walls and roofs of pandanus leaves. Most were little more than shacks that served as shops, storehouses or dwellings, or – more likely – as all three at the same time. Only the several barnlike taverns stood out. They were larger and noisier and had front porches where, that morning, their customers were raucously celebrating the generosity of the dead man in his grave. Dishevelled and disorderly, the drinkers were typical of the drifters, mavericks and adventurers that pitched up in St Mary’s. Some had the raw sun-scorched complexions of northerners, others were almost as dark-skinned as the native Africans, and there was every shade in between. Their dress was equally varied: red pantaloons of standard shipboard issue were popular; others wore grubby white cotton trousers cut short to make loose breeches. Most garments were ragged and patched, and among the smocks and shirts, some wore only a waistcoat or went bare-chested in the heat. Hats, caps and head cloths were of different styles and colours, and many heads were shaved bare and glistening with sweat. The majority of the drinkers were in their twenties or early thirties though Hector noticed one grizzled veteran wearing what must once have been a military buff coat from which he had cut away the sleeves.

  There was no sign of the sloop’s captain.

  Jacques’s light-hearted banter trailed away as soon as he realized that Jezreel was ill at ease and anxious. The three men walked in silence to where Hector had rented a room at the shabbiest and cheapest of the taverns. Here, too, the funeral celebrations were in full swing, and they were bombarded with drunken invitations to join the merrymaking before they managed to find themselves a quiet spot where benches and tables had been left out under a palm tree.

  ‘Is Maria here with you?’ demanded Jezreel abruptly as soon as they had sat down.

  The bluntness of his question took Hector aback. In Bermuda, he had explained to his comrades that he felt his life had reached the stage where he should give priority to his future with Maria. He had spoken at length about his plans to establish a new home in Libertalia, and they had respected his wishes. If he ever needed their help, they told him, it would be given. Now, judging by Jezreel’s anxious tone of voice, it seemed that something was not quite right.

  ‘Maria will join me after I’ve settled in Libertalia,’ he answered defensively. ‘On the voyage here we learned that she is with child. Luckily, our ship stopped in the Canaries, where she has some distant cousins in Tenerife. She’ll stay with them until the baby’s born, then she’ll follow on.’

  He broke off as a sudden quarrel erupted among the drinkers in the tavern’s porch. Two men were in a furious shouting match. Hector turned to see what was going on. One of the revellers ran out into the open and began to mince up and down, wiggling his hips suggestively while his colleagues looked on, hooting with laughter and making lewd comments. Hector gathered that the quarrel was about who should inherit the dead man’s woman. Moments later the quarrel turned ugly. One claimant to the woman leaped forward, got his hands around his rival’s throat and tried to throttle him. There were whoops of encouragement as their drunken comrades gathered round to watch the fight. The two men swayed back and forth, then tripped and fell to the ground, and were lost from view. There was more excited baying, followed by a pistol shot, and when the crowd parted it was to leave space for the wounded victim to be carried away by his friends.

  When the hubbub had settled, Jacques could contain his curiosity no longer. ‘Jezreel, what made you change your mind about returning to London?’

  ‘I got as far as New York and was looking for a ship to take me to England when I came across the captain of that sloop.’

  Jacques frowned. ‘Quite a coxcomb, by the look of him.’

  ‘That’s Thomas Tew.’

  The mention of the name made Hector sit up straight. ‘Tew! Jacques and I have trying to track him down. It’s said that Misson has put him in charge of all Libertalia’s ships. Tew can tell us how to get to Libertalia—’

  The stony look on Jezreel’s face made him hesitate.

  ‘Have you heard different?’ Hector finished on a slightly puzzled note.

  Jezreel chose his words carefully. ‘I heard the exactly same rumour in New York: that Tew is teamed up with Misson in his Libertalia project. So when I learned that Tew’s ship was in port and due to sail for Madagascar, I went aboard to ask him if he could help you and Maria when he got here.’

  Hector sensed that Jezreel was holding something back. ‘What made you come all the way here yourself? Tew would have put in a good word with Misson after you had spoken with him.’

  Jezreel pressed his lips together like someone considering how to deliver an unpleasant message with the least hurt. ‘Hector, I have to tell you that Thomas Tew has heard about Libertalia. But he has no idea how the rumour got started that he has anything to do with Misson. I asked him straight out.’

  Hector was unwilling to be put off. ‘But when Tew came ashore just now, he looked as if he knew his way about. He must have been in St Mary’s before?’

  Jezreel nodded. ‘He has. But he told me that he’s never been to any country by the name of Libertalia nor has he ever met with Misson . . .’ He paused, before adding in an unhappy voice, ‘If such a person really exists.’

  Hector could not believe what he was hearing. ‘But that’s impossible! Who else could have founded Libertalia?’

  Jezreel’s silence was unnerving. When he next spoke, his voice was full of apology. �
��I only know what I’ve heard from Thomas Tew, and he had no reason to lie to me. So I decided I had to get here and warn you before you and Maria blundered into real trouble. It’s lucky that I caught up with you when you had got no farther than St Mary’s. Thankfully, Maria isn’t here.’

  Hector gazed in shock at the big man. Jezreel had called into question everything that he and Jacques had hoped for and planned. If neither Misson nor Libertalia existed, then by raising her false hopes he’d failed Maria just as he had failed the Frenchman.

  Jacques provided a brief moment of support. ‘You’re wrong there, Jezreel,’ he said. ‘This morning we ran into the chief man of this place. Right bastard by the name of Baldridge. He believes in Misson, even told me to clear off before I brought any of Misson’s ideas into St Mary’s.’

  Jezreel opened his mouth, but nothing came out, then he sighed and stated with a tone of calm finality: ‘There is no such place as Libertalia. It’s a fancy tale, invented to attract people to come out here. I wish it was otherwise.’

  There was a long silence. Finally, Jacques asked quietly, ‘Just supposing that you’re right, Jezreel, what do you suggest we do now?’

  Hector knew that the question had really been addressed to him, not Jezreel. He was all too aware that Jacques had followed his example when deciding to seek a new life in Libertalia.

  ‘I suppose we could head back to Bermuda, or Jamaica,’ he heard himself say. ‘Pick up where we left off. I could send word for Maria to join me, with the baby.’

  He tried to force brightness into his voice though he was numbed by the collapse of his dream. He knew that what he was proposing was an act of desperation, full of risk. Eventually the authorities in Jamaica would receive from London their official copies of the various charges of piracy against him. Then the machinery of justice could grind back into action. If he returned to the Caribbean with Maria and the baby, he – and his friends as well – would probably finish up in prison or on the gallows. He felt slightly sick as he recalled that he was virtually penniless. He did not even have enough money to live on while he came up with a new way of providing for Maria and the baby.

  Jacques must have guessed what he was thinking. ‘Don’t worry about me, Hector. I’ll wait for a ship heading out of here and offer to work my passage before that whoreson Baldridge makes good his threat to put me aboard a ship bound for France. I don’t expect much of a welcome there.’

  When Jezreel next spoke, he was not looking directly at his friends but down at his hands. They were big and calloused, the knuckles marked with the scars from backsword cuts. In a hoarse voice that was just above a whisper, he said, ‘There is a way we can make enough money to start all over again, sufficient to buy ourselves new identities, or purchase pardons from a willing judge who’ll pocket a juicy bribe to make the past disappear.’

  Hector felt an awful tightness gathering in his chest. He knew what Jezreel was going to propose. He had been hiding the truth from himself ever since he had come to St Mary’s. He had seen the ne’er-do-wells in the taverns, and the occasional glimpse of unlikely wealth: a rough-and-ready sailor wearing a gold brocade sash to hold up his pantaloons and paying for a round of drinks in the tavern with an unfamiliar silver coin. Then there had been the exotic items, including a magnificent feather fan on a six-foot gilded shaft, that were carried from the jetty into Baldridge’s warehouse. They were not items obtained by legitimate commerce, not even in the slave trade. They were loot from the sea. Baldridge, and others like him in St Mary’s, were dealers in stolen goods, the proceeds of piracy.

  Jezreel spoke again. ‘On the voyage here I got friendly with the crew on Tew’s ship. Most of them have sailed with him before, and they say this is their final trip. There’s a great prize to be had – they would not tell me what it is. But it’s enough to set them up for life.’

  ‘You mean, we go back to piracy,’ said Hector in a stiff voice.

  ‘It won’t be the same,’ Jezreel insisted, speaking more firmly now. ‘We’re on the far side of Africa. The authorities in London or the Caribbean could not care what happens here. Even if they do find out, it’ll be far too late. We’ll have gone our own ways.’

  ‘You’re forgetting about the ship-owners,’ Hector told him. ‘If they’re hurt, they’ll insist we’re hunted down and hung.’ He was thinking of the powerful trading companies – English, French and Dutch – whose vessels sailed the eastern routes. These would be the most likely targets for men like Tew.

  ‘Tew’s not so rash as to interfere with them. From what I learned from his crew, it’s foreigners who’ll be losing their riches – and there are other raiders coming to join him. There’ll be a whole squadron of freebooters.’

  Hector stared glumly out towards where Tew’s sloop was at anchor. From the moment he had seen the vessel entering harbour, he had known she had no merchandise in her hold. Her sleek hull was never designed for cargo, and she gave off an air of menace.

  Jacques leaned forward and laid a hand on his arm. ‘Hector, if we do as Jezreel suggests, maybe we’ll stumble across Misson or even Libertalia on the way to wherever it is these freebooters are going. There’s nothing here for us in St Mary’s. I’m prepared to take the chance.’

  The atmosphere hung heavily between the three friends as Hector struggled with his conscience, unwilling to take the next step.

  ‘Very well,’ he said at last and with a heavy heart. ‘But just for this one venture, and if there’s any risk to my future with Maria, I’ll back out.’

  He rose to his feet. ‘Let’s join the others in the tavern. At least we can celebrate Jezreel’s arrival.’

  That evening Hector drank himself into a stupor. Maria had trusted him to shape a law-abiding future for them to share. The thought that he had now chosen to put her faith in him at risk was difficult to bear.

  THREE

  Another cannon shot woke him, this time a very different sound – a deep heavy thud followed immediately by two similar detonations in quick succession. They were so close at hand that the air shook, and a sharp jab of pain lanced through his skull. He forced open his gummy eyelids. He was lying on the earth floor of their rented room and could not remember how he had got there. The inside of his mouth tasted foul, his tongue swollen and rough. He closed his eyes and waited for the throbbing pain in his head to subside, but he was desperately thirsty and needed to empty his bladder.

  He was summoning up the strength to get to his feet when he became aware of people outside, cursing and calling out in alarm. He heard someone yell that St Mary’s was under attack. Groggily he hauled himself to his feet, shambled to the door, and looked out. To his astonishment, he saw that a large and heavily armed three-masted ship was already halfway along the approach channel. Very soon she would be safely past the shore battery that defended St Mary’s and the settlement would be at the mercy of her broadsides. Hector hung on to the doorpost to steady himself. It was mid-morning and the bright sunlight hurt his eyes. This newcomer was truly formidable. He judged her to be close to 400 tons, more than three times the size of Tew’s sloop. Laboriously he counted the guns facing him on the port side – twenty-three of them arranged in two tiers, some on the upper deck, and the muzzles of the others poking out through gun ports cut in the hull. Those he could see clearly were demi-culverins that fired a nine-pound ball. Two or three well-placed shots would reduce even Baldridge’s well-built warehouse to rubble. He winced, and gripped the doorpost more firmly as one of the stranger’s deck cannon fired and the blast ripped across the calm water of the harbour. A flock of gulls circling over the mangroves dipped and swerved away. ‘Shit! That’s a king’s ship!’ exclaimed a man standing nearby in the tavern’s porch. He sounded as though he had a bad case of the jitters, and judging by the grey haggard look on his face, he must have been one of the revellers on the previous day.

  ‘Why didn’t the shore battery stop her?’ complained his companion, who looked equally worse for wear.

  ‘
Gunners too drunk or sleeping it off, no doubt. Lazy swine.’ The unknown vessel was taking in her sails and turning up into the wind. ‘She’s coming to anchor. We better shift ourselves before the shore party gets here.’

  Hector looked for an ensign flying at the mainmast or the vessel’s broad stern. There was nothing to identify her nationality. If this was a king’s ship, he could understand the near-panic among the observers. Many of them would be wanted by the law.

  Jezreel sauntered round the corner, a half-eaten loaf of bread in his hand and his mouth full. He must have been having breakfast in the front room of the tavern. He appeared to be remarkably relaxed.

  ‘What do you make of her?’ Hector asked him.

  Jezreel chewed and swallowed before answering. ‘English-built by the look of her. As I said last evening, there are other captains coming to join Tew. This one’s prepared to waste some gunpowder by the sound of it.’

  The consternation outside the tavern was beginning to subside as the onlookers realized that the strange vessel had been firing a salute, not bombarding the settlement. Jezreel offered Hector the rest of the loaf. ‘Here, have a bite of this. You look dreadful. Something in your stomach will help.’

  Hector shook his head and went to relieve himself behind the bushes before re-joining Jezreel. The big man had taken a seat on the same bench as the previous evening, and was calmly watching the scene unfold. The newly arrived ship dominated the small harbour. Her hull was painted black with a broad white stripe just above the waterline that ran full length from bow to stern. Some sort of carved figurehead decorated her stem, though it was too far for Hector to make out what the image represented. There were still no national colours at her stern or the mainmast and Hector allowed himself to imagine the white ensign of Libertalia hoisted there. He was beginning to recover from Jezreel’s disastrous news, and deep down, he clung to the notion that Libertalia or a sanctuary like it would eventually materialize.