This happened on the morning of June 23, 1796.
It began as a normal, if cloudy, day with no portent of evil or omen to concern the captain. Just after breakfast the call came down from the lookout.
“Deck there! Ship dead ahead!”
All eyes looked southward, and Fallon and Beauty grabbed their telescopes and went forward to the bow. What they could see was a ship; at least it looked like a ship, but without sails. It was difficult to see in the morning haze, but it certainly looked ominous. They kept their telescopes trained on the mystery for a full five minutes without speaking.
Finally, “What do you think, Beauty?”
Beauty rubbed her right eye and raised her telescope again, studying carefully. “It’s a ship, all right, but a ship that’s been knocked about horribly.” Indeed, the sails were shredded, the foremast was over the side, the rigging a tangle. It looked very much like the ship had simply died. Brutally.
“Call all hands, Beauty,” ordered Fallon. “Shorten down and go slow. Let’s see what we see.”
Sea Dog took way off and slowly sailed down to a ghost ship. Her larboard side was shot through, with jagged holes and upturned guns and what looked like dried blood in her scuppers. It was eerily quiet, and the Sea Dogs were mute with suspicion and curiosity.
Fallon studied the ship from perhaps a cable length away, a big ship for hauling cargo of some sort. “Beauty, heave-to and lower my gig. I’ll want six men to go with me. If this is a trap, open fire immediately. Don’t worry for our safety. Open fire. That’s an order.”
Beauty nodded, but frowned, and then muttered under her breath, “Damned if I will.”
Fallon and the gig’s crew rowed across to the ship, the scene becoming more macabre by the stroke. A ghost ship, indeed, settled low in the water. They clapped onto the hull and climbed up the side and over the railing to a scene from hell itself. She was a slaver; her cargo had been human, her ballast below decks once living and breathing. It looked as though the hatches had been opened, the slaves had tried to escape or been ordered up, and the slaughter of crew and cargo was recorded in the blood and frozen, pleading faces of the dead. Bodies lay scattered about, hacked and sometimes unrecognizable as a man or a woman; someone had taken delight in mutilation.
Fallon rushed to the railing and threw up, the bile burning his throat. He tried to get his breath, gasping for air, only to vomit again. He was not alone at the rail as most all the crew found someplace to be sick. Dead sailors were nothing new to these men, but this was beyond anything that any of them had ever seen. Finally, weak and nauseous, Fallon turned to measure the destruction.
The deck was scarred by cannon shot, the helm smashed, and the few guns upended and pointing skyward. The bodies looked days old, perhaps a week, and the stench was putrid and overwhelming. Most of the slaves wore little clothing, some had manacles or chains. God knows where they had come from or where they thought they were going. Fallon could only imagine what waited below decks, and it took every ounce of resolve he possessed to send him down there.
They began the search for survivors, which they were certain they would not find. Dead slaves were everywhere, twisted between barrels and in piles of lost humanity, staring like owls in the darkness, deck after deck. While Fallon made his way below to the captain’s cabin, his crew began moving the length of the ship, looking in hiding places. No one caught in the open had lived.
Fallon found nothing that told the story in the stern cabin; typically, slavers kept a record of their cargo, but the ship’s papers had apparently been taken or thrown overboard, for the stern windows hung open. He had just turned to go back on deck when he heard one of his men cry out.
“Come here, you bugger! I’ll not hurt ye, my word!” rang out in the stillness and Fallon froze, half in terror at what he was about to see. Cully, Sea Dog’s ablest gun captain, was dragging a squirming but clearly weak boy out from behind a water cask. The boy’s eyes were terrified, and his clothes, what there were, were soiled and ragged. He was horribly thin, his ribs showing clearly against the taut, dark skin of his chest.
Cully half carried him up the companionway steps with Fallon close behind. The boy collapsed on deck, whimpering and moaning and recoiling into a writhing, wretched ball as Fallon approached.
“My God, my God,” Fallon muttered. He knelt and tried to talk softly to the boy but got no response, just fear. The boy covered his face with his hands as if fearing the sword’s blade coming.
“Cully, you and Hammond get him into the gig,” said Fallon. “You men, one last pass through the ship to look for any more survivors. Look hard, men. Where there was one hiding, there may be more.”
They looked carefully, calling out into every dark spot, but there were no more survivors. Just the one boy. They bundled him in their own clothing and rowed back to Sea Dog, the boy cowering in the bottom of the gig. It was a somber, concerned crew that handed him up the side to waiting hands. Pence was summoned to take the boy below to be examined, and Fallon ordered the cook to take him some pork and pudding.
It was early afternoon now, and Fallon pondered what to do about the battered ship. Somehow it couldn’t be left to just drift away, carrying all those rotting bodies. No, that lacked the dignity of a funeral. Plus, it was a hazard as it was and an indecent testimony to the brutish nature of man.
“I think we should burn the ship,” Beauty offered, as if to read Fallon’s mind working through the problem. They both stared across the short space of water to the drifting hulk. Fallon agreed that firing the ship seemed like the best option, and by the first dogwatch smoke was curling through the hatches of the ghost ship, the end coming in a fiery inferno no man could ever forget. It was a rotten business until the last burning timber hissed in the sea.
Finally, the boy. Fallon wondered whether the boy perhaps had a mother or father in the ship, as well, and whether they were taken or killed. Whoever attacked the ship had been after slaves and had no doubt taken off the ablest ones, killing those they didn’t need or those who fought back. Maybe the boy’s father was even now on his way to a market to be sold, perhaps a market in Bermuda, for there was one there. Fallon grimaced. Slavery was grotesque and inhuman but perfectly legal in Bermuda, if not in most of the world. Legal perhaps, but it repulsed him.
He went below just as Pence, the surgeon, was stepping from around the cockpit screen. Raising a finger to his lips, Pence motioned Fallon to the captain’s cabin to talk.
“He’s sleeping now, Nico; I gave him a draught after he ate his supper and he’s resting,” said Pence in a whisper.
“Did he speak at all?” asked Fallon softly. “Tell you anything of what happened on his ship?”
“Nothing,” replied Pence. “He hasn’t spoken a word. I don’t even know if he understands English. He may not, you know. Maybe they came straight from Africa. Looking at his rags, maybe.”
“How is his condition?”
Pence considered. “Well, he’s been without food for days, maybe longer, so he’s thin and weak as a kitten but should be fine. He’s a strong boy. He ate his supper like a wolf.”
“Good for him!” said Fallon. A boy with an appetite was a boy on the mend, he thought. Now he left the cabin and went on deck to find Beauty. She was at the binnacle, just finishing a check of their position on the slate as he approached.
“Pence says the boy is going to be all right,” said Fallon. “But he hasn’t spoken. Doesn’t know if he even speaks English. I’m thinking we should take him on as a ship’s boy because if we let him loose in the Turks he either won’t survive or he’ll be picked up as a runaway and put back into slavery. What do you think?”
She smiled. “I’ve already entered him in the books.” Once again, Beauty was ahead of him.
Now Fallon smiled. “How did you enter him?”
“Mr. Boy,” she said. “I guessed he was twelve. Listed him as a volunteer. I’ll take him under my wing, Nico; let’s put him with the other youngsters.”
“Excellent,” said Fallon approvingly. “Let’s hope Mr. Boy takes to the ship, and the ship to him.”
That night, Fallon sat at his small desk and wrote:
Tell me something now, my love
Is your heart lost and alone?
For I’ll set my ship
a-sailing and ask the wind to
bring me home.
Well, he was melancholy and lonely and at sea in more ways than one, and he was thinking sappy thoughts. So, love.
FOURTEEN
SUNDAY.
They sailed through the Turks Island Passage before noon and, because the wind grew light between the islands, it was not until almost sunset that they rounded up and let go in Cockburn Harbor. A pretty harbor, with a few buildings, some trees, and two cargo ships at anchor off a main dock to the northwest where Fallon ordered his gig landed in the yellowing light. He made his way to Cockburn Town, past a few shops along a main thoroughfare, and found the Somers office closed for the day.
A warm evening and a soft breeze made him want to linger, and then he heard the chanting and singing of evensong. “Rock of Ages” drifted over the little town.
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.
Fallon followed the sound past a blacksmith’s barn to a small, shingled church set against a dune. Candles were flickering in the open windows, and the large front doors were standing open. He eased up to the church and peered in to see the small congregation standing with their backs to him, singing solemnly. He knew the song from childhood, though he’d not sung it for years. Then he stepped away and retraced his steps back through the settlement to the dock, oddly hopeful. His men were still sitting in the gig and pushed off as soon as he was aboard. They rowed slowly away from the land, in no particular hurry, the church’s music drifting to them.
But now Fallon heard more singing, not from the church, but from his ship! More than fifty voices joining the island congregation:
While I draw this fleeting breath,
When mine eyes shall close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See Thee on Thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
The crew lined the starboard rail of Sea Dog, many holding candles and lanterns. Oars stopped as the men in the gig stared in amazement, a few joining in.
It was a spectacle, really, men who gave no quarter in battle, rough and often violent men, who now paused from life’s circumstances to sing to an island of strangers. It was a solemn moment, wonderful in its way.
Fallon thought of Elinore again, perhaps in church herself, and wondered if she had a thought for him today. Normally confident, Fallon felt oddly insecure as his feelings for her became deeper. Perhaps she was just a fickle girl, not a woman at all, for whom loyalty was a stage in life she hadn’t yet reached. The thought sank his heart.
The gig tied off handsomely and Fallon went up the side, staring at the men. The crew finished with “Heart of Oak,” for the Mother Country, and dispersed in twos and threes, at ease in a safe harbor. Beauty smiled broadly at Fallon from the binnacle. Mr. Boy stood next to her, dressed in ship’s slops, his eyes wide.
“What a wonderful thing, Beauty! The crew sounded like St. Alban’s choir!”
“Their idea, Nico. They wanted to do it,” said Beauty proudly.
Fallon looked down at the boy.
“And how are you doing, young man?” Then, kneeling: “I like your new clothes!”
But the boy said nothing, rather stepped backward, eyes wider still.
“It will take a while, Nico,” said Beauty soothingly. “With what he’s seen—being kidnapped and the slaughter—it would take me forever.”
“I know. It’s beyond imagining. Well, there’s certainly no rush. But if we get into it, I will want him safely below decks. He will be scared to death, I’m sure. But I want him safe.” Then, as an afterthought, “Has he spoken any words yet, of any kind, any language?”
“None that I know about,” said Beauty. “Whatever he’s thinking is staying inside his head.”
Quitting the deck, Fallon made his way down the companion-way to his cabin. He saw it almost immediately, the moment he entered, something out of place, something where it shouldn’t be. A small package on his desk in the lighted circle of a flickering candle. He tossed his hat to the stern seat and sat down, staring at it. His fingers untied the blue ribbon and the paper fell away.
A small key, tarnished and gray, which he had seen only in Elinore’s hand in the moonlight. There was no note, for she knew he would know why she’d given it to him.
She would go there with no one else.
FIFTEEN
AFTER BREAKFAST the next morning, Fallon and Beauty went ashore to meet Nilson at the Somers office. It was a lovely Caribbean day, warm and bright; they passed pastel buildings and women in broad straw hats with curious eyes. There were carts selling baskets and scarves, and children playing with sticks in the sandy street.
Fallon was in lifted spirits, although he had not worked out exactly how Elinore had gotten the key to Beauty. Or whether Beauty knew what the gift had been. He smiled at his own naïveté: Women had their ways.
Nilson was just as Fallon had imagined him: proper, haughty, white mustache, ruddy face. He had little blue veins in his nose and a very high opinion of himself. His office was a simple affair with cedar walls and ceiling courtesy of Bermuda, a few desks and chairs, and a writing secretary. Brown and plain.
Nilson introduced his clerk at the secretary as Mr. Hewes, in charge of schedules and numbers on papers; he had a plain face, someone you met and instantly forgot. Did he have black hair or brown? A scar? At any rate, he was busy adding figures and couldn’t be bothered with anything else.
After introductions, Nilson opened fire. “Before you ask, Captain Fallon, we’ve had no word of Calypso, our missing ship. We are presuming she’s lost to privateers or pirates. We don’t know, for sure. But it has cost us a pretty penny, I can tell you.” He looked squarely at Fallon, as if putting the blame there. “At this rate there will be no salt business in a year! The Royal Navy has been no help; what do they care? And now I have a single ship when I need ten for protection. And I am sent a captain new to these waters who doesn’t know salt from shit! By God, I hope you have a plan, sir.”
Beauty turned on him immediately. “Our plan is to protect Mr. Somers’s ships and find those French buggers or whoever they are and put a boarding pike up their asses, Mr. Nilson,” she said with all appropriate indignation before Fallon could open his mouth. “That’s our fucking plan.”
Ah, Beauty.
Fallon beamed. Nilson rocked back at Beauty’s broadside, his mustache twitching nervously. It was quite possible he’d never met a woman with Beauty’s particular vocabulary. Fallon concealed his emerging laughter with a cough.
“Tell me, Mr. Nilson,” he said, “what’s your estimate of the number of pirates and privateers in this part of the Caribbean?”
Nilson composed himself, looking away from Beauty, preferring to do business with Fallon. “They’ve always been thick, Captain. Pirates work out of the Bahamas, which does nothing to stop them. The Bahamian government wants control of the Turks because they want the salt. So helping Bermuda stop our pirates ain’t in it.” Here his voice became conspiratorial. “But now we have this rascal named Clayton, who commands a frigate he took by cunning. He renamed her Renegade, an apt name, sir. He’s taken several prizes and turned them into his own private squadron, even attacking other pirates and privateers and driving them off. He has a virtual monopoly between here and the United States. I tell you, sir, it will take the Royal Navy to stop him. And even then—”
“Just such a ship is c
oming to join the hunt for Wicked Jak Clayton, as I hear he is called,” said Fallon soothingly. “HMS Harp, 32 guns, will call here in a day or two if I am not mistaken. Captain Bishop’s orders are to stop at nothing to deal with Clayton.”
Surprise made Nilson’s mustache twitch. “Then I hope you will place yourself under his wing, Captain,” he said in a low voice. These last words more of a command than a suggestion. Beauty made to rise to it but Fallon cut her off.
“Perhaps while we endeavor to see the salt operation you can tell us more, Mr. Nilson,” he said. “I’m sure you have much more to share.”
They left Hewes in the office and walked to a waiting buggy that would take them to the salinas, or salt pans. Nilson was quite cautious with his words now, keeping a sly eye on Beauty. After they discussed the loss of shipping and Calypso in particular, Nilson turned the conversation to the business of salt—white gold he called it. He was a fount of information on the subject. By his reckoning, it was the only real preservative for food that the world had; salt’s properties prevented slaughtered animals and fish from rotting into inedibility. And salt was particularly important aboard ships, of course, where sailors were fed a steady diet of salt pork, salt beef, and salt fish. As Somers had discovered, the major market was to be found in the United States, which had no salt production to speak of.
“Imagine what Grand Turk would be without salt!” Nilson exclaimed as they arrived at the salt pans. “There would be nothing here. Salt is the total economy of this wretched place. Columbus may have discovered Grand Turk, but salt made it famous.”
Nilson explained that Bermudians had worked the salt flats for generations, flooding the pans at will by building dams, allowing the seawater to evaporate, and raking the leftover salt into huge mounds that dominated the island’s scenery. “Do you have any idea how much salt Grand Turk produces annually?” Nilson asked, but he did not wait for an answer. “I bet not, for it is astounding. Over thirty million pounds!”
The Bermuda Privateer Page 6
