The Bermuda Privateer

by William Westbrook

  All of the prisoners and slaves now crept low to the ground to avoid being seen against the sky. Beauty’s strong arms helped Fallon down the hill toward the beach, the rocky hillside providing footing for her peg leg, and when they were as close as they dared, they lay flat where the sand met the rocks at the base of the hill.

  Fallon studied the scene on the beach intently. Any moment now two brave seamen would emerge from different parts of the darkness, staggering and closing up their pants as if having gone to the heads, to merge with the other pirates around the fire. And then Fallon saw them step out of the darkness, from his vantage point indistinguishable from the other pirates. One picked up a musket where its owner had dropped it before falling unconscious, the other grabbed a fallen torch. The seaman with the musket seemed to stumble, laughing, and fell down. He almost rolled into the fire, still laughing, and as he rose he kicked his musket discreetly into the coals. Fallon tensed as the two sailors began dancing around in a controlled stagger, staying on the edge of firelight, gradually stumbling past other dancing figures, moving ever so slightly away from the fire in the direction of the far huts.

  Fallon looked at Clayton to see if he noticed anything. It was then that the law of fire and gunpowder took hold and the musket seemed to explode on the far side of the fire. For a moment the blast drew everyone’s attention, including Clayton’s, and then the pirates erupted in laughter and the two seamen drifted off into the night, toward the far side of the cove, arm-in-arm, singing.

  Fallon breathed, unaware of how long he had been holding his breath. From that or from his injury he was light-headed. Minutes took forever, and all the prisoners’ eyes were focused on the far side of the harbor, still very black and quiet. Until…until in the distance a tiny prick of light! Then a bigger light that could only be a flame, then an eruption of flame as Clayton’s bungalow caught like a giant torch. Then one by one the flames sped along a trail of gunpowder laid down by the seamen, moving from hut to hut, each shack exploding in fire. One half-drunk pirate gave a yell and began running toward the burning huts. Now they all followed, like a game of Follow the Leader, with Clayton clambering down off his scaffold, throwing his woman aside, and bringing up the rear of the pack.

  That was the sign Fallon had waited for. The prisoners broke into a dead run now, some carrying the weak or wounded, Fallon carried along by a sailor and a slave, Cully and Beauty helped by others, hopping together as they made for the waiting boats on the beach. They needed all the boats to be off that beach. Quickly they climbed aboard, Fallon the last to leap, catching his breath, still watching the pirates.

  On instinct, Clayton turned around. His high-pitched scream could have awakened the dead, and it certainly got the pirates’ attention, even drunk as they were. His men reversed course and charged back toward the beach, real venom in their screams now, swords out. The Sea Dogs and slaves pushed off in the boats just before the first of the pirates ran into the surf, the seamen pulling like their lives depended on it, which was more than true. In fact, they rowed like the seasoned sailors they were, orderly, in harmony with one another, if with more determination than usual.

  Out to Sea Dog, and up the side came the crew, back suddenly to familiar stations, loosening sails, hacking at the anchor rode, Beauty at the helm. By God they were alive! The slaves, who knew nothing about sailing, had the good sense to stay still, with Mr. Boy speaking to them softly and urging them to remain quiet. The sails were raised, the anchor rode was finally parted, and Sea Dog began to make way. She sailed as sweetly as she always did, gliding to the far side of the harbor, where two very tired seamen were treading water as the ship momentarily hove-to in the light air to pick them up.

  The moon was just showing over the island as they crept out of the cove and, as foreseen, the moonlight showed the way, revealing the small boats they’d taken from the beach trailing astern, soon to be cast off at sea, the final, glorious indignity.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  BEAUTY CONNED the schooner around the island and Sea Dog met the full force of the trade winds and consequent rollers on the nose but she tacked expertly, a man in the chains casting the lead and constantly calling out the depth. Fallon lay on deck, too exhausted to go below. He slept occasionally—Mr. Boy having provided a rolled-up blanket for a pillow. It was a beautiful night for a sail, especially an escape sort of sail.

  Beauty stood at the helm all night, sailing south past Long Island before bearing off to the southeast. The ship felt right, made almost as good as new with the materials at hand on Clayton’s island, and Beauty reveled in her new freedom. She had wanted to sail for home, to Bermuda, but Fallon had insisted on finishing some business in Grand Turk first, tying up loose ends he’d said. Well, she could guess what those loose ends were.

  It was an exquisite night, such as you could only find at sea, the stars sitting in the sky like tiny punctures in a black curtain. The hands were quiet. Most slept, while those on watch huddled at their stations and dozed with little need for sail handling because of the constancy of the trades. Three days should see them in Grand Turk if outside events did not overtake them.

  Beauty thought of the pirate Clayton and the utter hopelessness they’d felt only hours ago. The plan to escape had been simple, but so much could have gone wrong and, if it had, they would all be food for barracuda this very moment. She looked at Fallon sleeping, with Mr. Boy sitting on his haunches watching over him. Like the other Sea Dogs, she had seen the boy in a new light this night and would never look at him the same.

  Her mind drifted to Bermuda, to home. She thought of that night at her cottage, when she’d seen Fallon out of the corner of her eye at the back door, about to knock. At first she was terrified that he knew, then she was oddly relieved. Her sexuality was literally the only secret she’d ever kept from him. After that night he’d never said a thing, never changed a thing between them, and she loved him all the more for it.

  All night they plunged southward, the only sounds the familiar ones of ropes stretching tautly, water gurgling down the side of the ship and frothing at the stern, and the hiss and splash of the ship as the waves met the ship beam on. By morning they were well on their way to Grand Turk.

  Fallon awoke at daybreak, savagely hungry, alive. The hands had tiptoed around him, letting him rest. But now that he was awake the ship could be normal, with the hands changing watches and food served out, of which there was plenty left—Clayton lied, to no one’s surprise.

  Before changing helmsmen and sending Beauty below to get some rest, Fallon asked her to call all hands. It was time to address the crew. They gathered in a loose circle and Mr. Boy helped Fallon to his feet.

  “Men, I want to commend each of you for your bravery and courage in getting everyone off that damned island,” Fallon said. “Somehow Clayton will pay for what he did to us, for what he’s done to many others, as well. This isn’t over. We’re going back to Grand Turk now, to settle some business and then home to Bermuda. For some of you, well, you may have had enough of this privateering business. I won’t blame a single man for wanting to go back home and stay there! As for the slaves, I promised you your freedom and you shall have it. You may join this ship, or stay in Grand Turk to find work as free men. But whatever you decide, you will never be slaves again.”

  At this Mr. Boy conferred with the other former slaves in their language and the men nodded soberly, heads bobbing and finally faces smiling broadly.

  The speech exhausted Fallon, but the men cheered and huzzahed and clapped one another on the back, and a few clapped slaves on the back, as well. It was a good moment. Fallon waited for Mr. Boy to finish talking to the freedmen and then motioned him to the larboard railing, for he had questions for him now that he knew he could answer back.

  “Young man,” he began, “you are a most amazing fellow. Not only can you speak, but you can fight and…lead! What you did on that island was extraordinary, bravely done, really. Now, where the hell did you come from? How do you come t
o speak English? I am totally fascinated to hear your story.”

  The boy seemed embarrassed by the compliments and for being singled out by Fallon. He looked out to sea before speaking, gathering his thoughts, or perhaps getting his memories in order.

  “I was born on a farm in West Africa,” he began. “My family worked there as slaves and, when I was old enough, I was put to work in the house, mostly in the kitchen, helping clean for a white family from England and I began to understand the language. The English family was good to us with food, but my father and mother had to work very hard in the fields. Then one night there was a raid on the farm, and these men from a different village than ours captured us and tied us up. I don’t know what happened to the white family but there were shots and I remember women screaming. We were taken on wagons to the coast, to ships there, and divided up. I don’t know what happened to my family.”

  Here the boy paused, tired of crying old tears, determined to soldier on. “The pirate Clayton attacked my ship and…you saw what he did. They took these men”—the boy motioned to the freedmen huddling near the main mast—“and they…they killed the women. I found a place to hide, but I heard the killing and when it was quiet I crept on deck and saw Renegade sail away. I was the only one left alive.”

  The boy was crying now, lost in the memory of that afternoon slaughter, his body trembling. “I thought I was going to die on the boat until you found me,” he said between sobs. “At first I thought you were going to kill me, Captain, sir, but you saved me.”

  Fallon listened, thunderstruck, and put his hands on the young man’s shoulders. “Young man, you saved me. Without you we would still be on that island, or dead, and I would have been hanged by now, doubly dead.”

  The boy smiled hesitantly, and wiped his tears away with his hand, trying to put an awful memory behind him. Fallon still held his shoulders, giving him strength. “But tell me,” Fallon asked softly, “what is your real name? I can call you by your real name now.”

  “My name is Ajani, Captain, sir.”

  Fallon considered a moment, putting the face with the name. “What does your name mean, Ajani?” he asked. “I have heard that all African names have a meaning.”

  “Yes, all babies are given names with meaning. Sometimes it is a big meaning, like a warrior name, but sometimes it might be simpler, like a name that meant you were born on Thursday. Different villages celebrate a birth in different ways.”

  “And your name?” asked Fallon.

  “Ajani means He who wins the struggle. My father gave me a name he hoped would make me strong enough to survive in the world.”

  “Ajani is a wonderful name,” said Fallon. “And it is the perfect name for such a brave young man. I believe you will always win a struggle!”

  Ajani smiled broadly, for his tears were dry now, his story told. Shyly, barely above a whisper, he said to Fallon: “My father called me Aja.” He looked at Fallon and smiled again.

  “You can call me Aja,” he said.

  LATER THAT day, Aja helped Fallon make his way to his old cabin. His clothes had been stolen, his private things were gone, all his books and papers and things apparently thrown overboard. Well, maybe not everything.

  When Aja left, Fallon knelt slowly down by the stern window and pressed on the corner of a plank just so. It raised a bit—enough for him to pry it up. There, just where he’d hidden it, was the key to the fisherman’s shack. Satisfied, he raised himself slowly and, as he turned to go back on deck, caught his reflection in the mirror. It was a haggard, much older Nicholas Fallon who looked back at him, almost unrecognizable, pale and thin. So much for appearances, he thought, and the smell of his own clothing drove him up the companionway to fresh air.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  HMS AVENGER hove-to off Grand Turk, not trusting the soundings on the charts for the entrance to Cockburn Harbor. Captain Kinis ordered the pinnace lowered and sent off to sound the channel through the reef that virtually encircled the island. It was late afternoon, still several hours of golden light left, and the sun would be behind them as they picked their way toward the harbor.

  “Sail ho!” came the shout from the masthead, and all eyes scanned the horizon. “North nor-east. Looks like a schooner!”

  Captain Kinis could just make out a smudge in the distance, and he certainly had no great concern for a schooner, even an enemy privateer. “Send up the colors, if you please,” he said calmly to the signal boy.

  The British ensign rose up the mast, followed by another shout from the masthead. “She’s hoisted British colors, sir!”

  Well, she might be British and she might not be, thought Davies, who had come on deck at the sound of the lookout’s hail. He decided to ask Kinis to run out the guns on the larboard side just in case, knowing he could fall off in a moment to open fire if need be.

  They had been hove-to for over an hour already, waiting for the pinnace to return. The pretty schooner—appearing smallish from the upper deck of a ship-of-the-line—came on boldly, with all the confidence of one British ship about to rendezvous with another. She was certainly handled smartly enough, the helmsman a real sailor by the looks of it and the crew sharp as she rounded up into the wind and hove-to not fifty yards from Avenger.

  “Ahoy,” yelled Kinis across the water. “What ship?”

  Fallon had arisen from his resting place near the railing and stared across at the massive wall of timber and armament and men. She was English all right, and hands from both ships were smiling and waving.

  “His majesty’s privateer Sea Dog,” he yelled back. “Lately a prize.”

  Kinis looked quizzically at Davies. “Ask the captain to come aboard, if you please,” said the rear admiral. “Send my gig. I think we may have found a ghost ship.”

  The gig was lowered and rowed across, and Fallon, who was still quite weak, was helped down into it by several hands. At the last Aja leapt into the gig as well, unbothered by the lack of an invitation. Fallon smiled in spite of himself—Aja, his protector, his young “coxswain.” Well, it had been a good thing so far.

  Fallon slowly but determinedly climbed up the side and stepped onto Avenger’s deck to stunned and curious looks from all hands, for he looked a fright in his shredded clothes and matted hair. Aja stood by his side self-consciously.

  “I am Kinis, captain of HMS Avenger,” said the flag captain as he approached his visitors. “Whom do I have the pleasure of welcoming aboard my ship?”

  “Nicholas Fallon, captain of Sea Dog, late of Rum Cay, bound for Grand Turk. And this is my coxswain, Ajani.” At this Fallon and Aja smiled at each other self-consciously.

  Davies stepped forward now. “I am Rear Admiral Davies, senior on his Majesty’s Caribbean station in English Harbor,” he said. “I welcome you both. Captain, may I invite you below for some refreshment? We are awaiting our pinnace, sent to sound the channel into Cockburn Harbor. Come, please.”

  With that, Davies led the unsteady Fallon below to a spacious cabin, invited him to sit, and ordered some cold hock. They looked at each other for a moment until the steward had left with orders to show Aja around the ship. Then Davies raised a glass.

  “To your escape from captivity, Captain, if indeed that is what happened. I am anxious to hear your story.”

  And so he did. For almost an hour Fallon spoke while Davies listened intently, clarifying a point here and there, probing for a deeper narrative. Fallon told the entire story beginning with his suspicions about a spy on Grand Turk to the battle with Clayton to the crew’s escape from the island. He was careful not to impugn Bishop, fearing to cast one of the rear admiral’s captains in a bad light, but Davies’ curiosity was piqued.

  “Captain Fallon, how many broadsides did Harp fire?” asked Davies.

  It was a direct question that required a direct answer. “One,” said Fallon.

  “And then he broke off?” asked Davies, wanting to be sure.

  “Yes,” answered Fallon flatly.

  “And the p
ackets had sailed through, I understand? It was just you and Clayton?” asked Davies.

  Fallon nodded.

  “One last question on this point then, if I may,” said Davies, “for I fear it is getting late to be getting underway, and I can hear the pinnace being hauled up.”

  “Oh, Sea Dog can lead you in, sir,” said Fallon. “Have no worry on that count.”

  “Excellent, thank you. So Sea Dog and Renegade were exchanging fire. I am curious as to your relative position vis-à-vis Harp.

  “Harp was about a cable’s length away from Renegade, to the east, and I was in the lee of Renegade, to the west,” said Fallon with certainty.

  “So you were in no danger from Harp’s broadsides?” Davies wanted to be clear on the point.

  “No,” said Fallon with complete honesty.

  So Harp could have fired, should have fired, but did not. Davies didn’t like what he heard or the conclusion he was reaching: Bishop had refused to engage the enemy.

  The interview was over. Davies took Fallon by the arm and led him up the companionway and asked him to yell across for Sea Dog to lead them through the channel. In moments Beauty bore away and made for the harbor, followed by a necessarily slower maneuver by Avenger just behind. The sun was sinking fast, and they would just get in with anchors down before it set.

  Davies and Fallon stood in the bows of Avenger, both seamen occupied with the same thought. Both wondering, unknown to the other, whether Harp would be at anchor in the harbor. Both hoping she would be.

  IN FACT, Harp had not moved for some time. Captain Hammersmith Bishop was rather the worse for drink at just that moment. He had been fortifying himself all day, trying to work up the courage to leave and go after Clayton, determined that tomorrow would be the day. Now, as he sprawled on the stern seat of his large and beautifully appointed cabin, looking out the stern windows, he saw a sight he could not comprehend, could not in a million years have imagined, a sight that would be the end of him. Sea Dog was leading Rear Admiral Davies’ flag ship into the harbor!