“Yes?”
“That was up at the Turks, where we was taking on wood. The party was in Jack’s charge, and she went along with us.”
“To stretch her legs, I suppose?”
“To wriggle her arse,” the priate snorted, though he lowered his voice when he did so. “And at poor Joey Bailt She got him behind a bush, somehow. I don’t know what happened there. Nothing, most likely. She don’t want to be hopped, really, she just wants to be fought over.”
“And . . . was she?”
“Wasn’t much of a fight, mister. We heard Rackham yell like an Injun, and by the time we got there he had Joey on the ground and was clouting him with that black stick of his. We didn’t dare grab him that time. If you’d seen his face you’d know why. Maybe Joey was already dead by the time we got there. I hope so. Makes me feel less to blame. But he was sure dead right afterward anyway.”
This amazed George, who had heard that pirates were sticklers for law, so long as they had made it themselves. Dueling was allowed, as it was among their betters; but this case sounded to Lawyer Rounsivel like one of unprovoked aggression.
“And Rackham wasn’t tried?”
“We was afraid of him. Even Vane. Rackham claimed Joey had hit him first. We wasn’t there when it started and we couldn’t rightly say—to swear to it, that is.”
‘What about her?”
“Oh, she backed up Rackham, naturally.” The pirate sank his voice still lower, leaning close. “She’s the one ought to’ve got her head bashed in, you ask me.”
And in less than an hour George would be meeting this woman again, for the fourth successive night, in the glade where first he’d seen her. How could he have known that Anne Bonney would prove such a perilous prize, that in their snatched moments together he would learn from her little about a lover who was available and accessible anyway?
Yet there was an undeniable thrill about those meetings in the glade. He did not delude himself about Anne Bonney. She was a bitch born. But she was a delectable bitch, a flame to quench.
It couldn’t go on. Rackham, newly elected king, had made a practice of mixing jovially with his subjects at the end of each day of work. He was punctilious about this. But it couldn’t last. Even though with his keen edge of suspicion he himself had not yet noticed anything out-of-the-way, somebody else was sure to do so, some bootlicker who would go to Rackham with the news. The wonder was that this hadn’t happened already. George Rounsivel, spy, was in peril here anyway, among these outcasts. But now for certain he was walking the lip of a fiery crater. One slip—just one little slip—
“So she’s a femme fatale, eh?”
“What was that?”
“French.”
“Oh, no. She’s Irish. Comes from Ireland.”
At this time George, who was supposed to be recasting the articles of comradeship, instead was gazing down the beach at Anne Bonney. She came slowly toward them.
In butt-tight man’s breeches, a breast-tight man’s shirt, her feet bare, her hair down around her shoulders, she no longer played the brazen hussy. She had passed beyond that. She did not now carry her hands on her hips, her head high. Those hips needed no outlining. Her chin was low, her hands demurely folded, but as she walked, she was as feminine as ever. She had tasted human blood, and like a tigress she would not rest until she had tasted it again . . . and again . . . The circumspect manner, the puritan-clasped hands, deluded nobody, not even herself. Though she walked with eyes downcast she was aware that every man in the camp was watching her—and squirming.
“She’s coming here,” the pirate whispered. “Well, I got to see a dog about a man. I’ve noticed you eyeing her, mister. I’d keep out of her way, I was you.”
“I sure will!”
George did not look up as she passed, though she walked within a few feet of where he sat writing.
“Don’t forget—tonight,” she whispered.
Still he did not look up. He gave an almost imperceptible nod.
A few minutes later there was a tap on his left elbow.
“Begging your pardon, sir?”
The pirates were mostly young men. Vane and Deal had been exceptions. Even Monk Evans, for all his fat, could not have been more than thirty. Calico Jack might have reached twenty-two. But the lad who accosted George was only that—a lad, perhaps fourteen. Such were not often permitted aboard of pirate vessels. Ashore, when havens like Port Royal and Trinidad and Samana were operating, the pirates could get all the women they wanted. But at sea there were long, hot, steamy stretches when the presence of a handsome cabin boy might wreck discipline. Many gangs stipulated against boys. A boy couldn’t fight or work as well as a man, though he’d eat as much. The notion of a body servant was repellent to pirates, a determinedly democratic lot.
Peter Knight would not have caused a quarrel on the longest of voyages. He was lumpy, all knobs, his face awash with freckles. One eye squinted—it would have been better if both had. His hair, the color of damp hay, didn’t look real. He was exceedingly short. He giggled a great deal, being half-witted. Perhaps that was why he had been taken into the band? A lunatic is supposed to bring good luck.
It occurred to George as he looked up from his writing—and a cold hand seemed to hold his throat at the thought—that such a boy would be used only to run errands for the captain or the quartermaster. One man held both those posts just now.
“You come from . . . Rackham?”
Peter had been gawping at the words on paper, which he found marvelous. Now, awkward, he essayed a sort of salute.
“Yes, sir From Captain Rackham. He wants to see you.”
“Right away?”
“Right away.”
The king wore his calico trousers and shirt, in blue and buff today, but he wore as well a salmon-colored silk drugget coat, and on his head was a huge tricorne. There were knives at his sash, and from each pocket the butt of a huge horse- or holster-pistol protruded. His hair was black, his eyes ice-green. His chin was blue.
He tossed George a negligent nod, greatly to George’s relief. The monarch, then, was not in a rage. Rather he showed worried, an appearance he did nothing to hide.
“I thought we might go over those articles again.”
Rackham’s interest in the articles at first had baffled, then amused George Rounsivel, as he came to understand it. Even a man who had not read for the courts might marvel that ruffians who had deliberately placed themselves outside accepted conventions should insist upon having, nevertheless, a law of their own. They were declared thieves, avowed enemies of mankind. Having said to the rest of the world “Go to Hell!” they could not and did not expect any sort of sympathy. Yet law they must have, and the fancier the better. Each little group of cutthroats laboriously framed a constitution.
John Rackham was no fool. He knew that the men he led attached a disproportionate importance to the so-called articles of comradeship or fellowship. He himself could have drawn up such an agreement, being familiar with the custom. He might have done a better job of it than George. “But I want a lot of ‘whereas’s and ‘hence’s,” he had pointed out.
George had reminded his master that any such constitution would have no standing, would be backed in world opinion by no precedent, emperor, king, parliament.
“It’ll be backed by us. Now, you write it.”
Whereupon George had scribbled a set of articles. But he’d done this so readily that Rackham, leery, scrutinized it with disapproval.
This was simple and perfectly clear. George always did strive to eschew polysyllables and anfractuosities of legal jargon, though obliged, on occasion, to signify to a client that some of those top-heavy phrases were put there for the purpose of protection and that it wasn’t all the lawyer’s fault.
Jack Rackham however had said that it wouldn’t do at all.
“First-off, I don’t like the way it says ‘one’ and ‘two’ and ‘three’ and so on, with just figures. It ought to be ‘Firstly’ and ‘Seco
ndly’ and ‘Thirdly’. You change that.”
So George had changed it.
He changed too the word “booty” to “share-out,” which a shocked chieftain told him was the proper expression.
Then Rackham objected to the use of “band,” a word he considered crude. He would substitute “association.”
“And while you’re at it, why can’t you make it ‘aforementioned association’?”
“Well, for one thing we haven’t mentioned it before.”
“Well, mention it then!”
Rackham squawked also at “lashed.” Too harsh.
“Flogged?”
“That has a nasty sound too. Why can’t you say ‘Such a miscreant shall receive Moses’ Law’?”
“What’s that?”
“Forty stripes lacking one, on the bare back.”
“Why do they call it Moses’ Law?”
“I don’t know. But never mind that. Put it in.”
Thus it went, a collaboration rather than an editing of this precious paper. George must have made a dozen drafts, and still Calico Jack had faults to find, complexities to insert.
For four days, whenever Jack Rackham had a little time to spare he summoned George for consultation about the articles. And George soon came to see that this was not all a propensity for the pompous. The talks were held on the open beach, within sight of the work being done on the sloop John and Elizabeth, now careened. These pirates, despite their high-sounding phrases about the Brotherhood of the Coast and everlasting friendship, did not like to let their fellow pirates out of sight.
The editorial discussions, then, being public, polished the king’s prestige. Rackham knew that, and took advantage of it. His literacy had struck with awe the hearts of his subjects, but to be properly appreciated it had to be seen in action. Here on the beach the great Calico Jack not only reviewed the work done by a Philadelphia lawyer, a member of the bar, but even learnedly—and audibly—pointed out mistakes and commanded their correction. This all helped Rackham in his position.
Again, the longer the pirates waited for the list, and the more fuss they saw made, the likelier they were to abide by the compact when at last they had sworn to it.
That was the rite George Rounsivel dreaded. He gathered from overheard talks that they made much of it, that each participant took the oath solemnly and separately. George knew that in the eyes of the law all pirates were Hostis humani generis—that is, outlaws, by definition enemies of the human race—so that no contract entered into with them would have standing, no agreement, verbal or otherwise, would be valid. But this did little to ease his conscience. The law after all was not everything.
He sought to postpone the event of signing. This was one reason why he submitted so meekly to all of Jack Rackham’s editorial meddling. The matter couldn’t be drawn out too long for George.
He did not reproach himself for his decision at the fort. Not only his neck had been at stake, but also his honor. Unless he did Woodes Rogers’ bidding he would be branded a pirate.
George’s common sense, then, told him that he was doing the right thing. But how would he feel after swearing eternal obedience to these ridiculous laws he himself had concocted and eternal fidelity to scoundrels he despised?
It was for this reason that his heart quopped softly when Rackham, after a long look at the latest draft, nodded affably.
“I think that’s about right now. Make me up a fair copy, and we’ll have the swearing-in tomorrow morning.”
George swallowed hard, looking down.
“I . . . I suppose you’ll want me to read the thing aloud? And I’ll write down the names and show ’em where to make their marks?”
“You won’t be here,” Jack Rackham said.
George looked up quickly. The king was gazing at his sweetheart, and in his eyes was that light of tenderness that shone so strangely there—but only in these circumstances.
“What do you mean?” George asked.
Anne Bonney had passed from sight, and her lover, relieved, spat into the sand, a man again.
“Rounsivel, you’re not known in Nassau, are you?”
George shrugged.
“A few turnkeys, the governor, and,” more softly, “the governor’s niece. That’s about all—excepting the sailors who took up from Hornigold’s sloop to the fort.”
“D’ye know Ben Hornigold himself?”
“He asked us some questions, but I wouldn’t say anything. I wanted to see the governor and explain that I wasn’t a pirate.”
Rackham nodded absently, not even troubling to sneer. It had been plain from the beginning that he did not believe George’s story of having been kidnapped. Nobody seemed to believe it.
“Why do you ask this?”
“Rounsivel, we’ve got to get a base. We can’t eat bales of silk, can we? Where’s the fun in going to bed with bullion? This gang will go mad if they don’t get some women soon. It ain’t a natural life, Rounsivel, a life like this. We have to be established somewhere.”
George nodded.
“And you’re thinking of taking Nassau?”
“Thinking of it. But it’ll have to be soon. This man Rogers means business. He’s proved that already. Now . . . tell me about that fort.”
George told what he could, not much, though such as it was, it was good hearing for Jack Rackham.
“There’s nobody I have that ain’t known in every rumshop there,” Rackham remarked, “excepting you. If you was to stay away from the fort, where they might recognize you—”
“Great God! You mean you’re asking me to go back to a place where they were going to hang me only last week?”
“The more reason why nobody would look for you there. And I could give you the name of a man who can be trusted. John Hay could ferry you over in that periagua Monk Evans left. We’ve stepped a mast into it. John wouldn’t go ashore, of course. He’d just arrange a rendezvous with you, to bring you back. And you’d both get an extra quarter-share in the next prize, by order of the captain.”
“I see. And, uh, when had you planned to launch this little expedition?”
“Well, if you was to start right now John could get you there before daybreak. He’s a smart sailor.”
George looked away, to keep Rackham from seeing the joy that must have leapt into his face. He would escape the ceremony! He could make his way quietly to Governor Rogers and give a report on the pirates’ strength and plans It was almost too good to be true. He rose, hands clasped before him so that their trembling would not show.
“It’ll be damn’ dangerous, you understand?” Captain Rackham said.
“I don’t doubt that.”
John Hay was uncommunicative. A wasp, small, mean, he made only one thing clear: that he had no thought of stepping ashore on New Providence, where, George deduced, there were those who did not like him.
“I’ll stand off,” he said. “I’ll be a fisherman.”
George wondered how anybody could hope to be mistaken for a fisherman in so frail a craft as this periagua, but he said nothing. Instead he watched Hay handle the boat.
Hay had raised New Providence, a mere blur, and made for it like a bee for the hive. What caused George to marvel was the ease and certainty with which the little man selected the very part of the south shore he wanted, picking it from that murky jungle as readily as he might have picked a peach from a basket.
This was the same spot from which Monk Evans and George had pushed off a week ago—a shallow cove grandiosely called Boar’s Bay.
There was no sand, only tidal muck. More important, there were no houses nearby. Nobody would see George scramble ashore.
Using a paddle, Hay made for the screened entrance of the “bay,” and the only word he threw George, over a reluctant shoulder, was: “Right here any time after sundown.”
“What’ll I do if I can’t find you?”
“Whistle. But you’ll find me.”
“But see here, suppose that—”
/> But Hay had gone. And George Rounsivel was alone.
He felt in fact most emphatically alone. He shivered, and set forth.
When he had crossed this island on foot in the company of Monk Evans a week ago, he had carefully remarked the way. Of course he couldn’t recall every step; but as he emerged from the morass-like thicket that bordered Boar’s Bay, and looked around at a landscape lit by the earliest rays of the sun and straked with columns of smoke, he had no doubt that he could find his way to Nassau.
There were no roads, not even drift-lanes. There were not many houses, and those were widely spaced and like everything else on this island of a temporary aspect, jerry-built, each being no more than a rickle of sticks with a palmetto-thatched roof.
George made a point of avoiding even such houses as did present themselves. He kept walking but never ran, and though he refrained from turning and twisting his head his eyes were always busy. He would not show furtive, even from afar. He must look as if he knew what he was doing.
It was his intention to go directly to Government House and to present himself to Woodes Rogers as unobtrusively as possible. He believed that he had already fulfilled the pardon requirements, but he had no wish for complications on the way. After all, he could be shot on sight.
If he was alert, if he was wary, he was at the same time in a state of amazement. It occurred to him yet again on that long rough walk that his associates and clients at home, could they see him now, would not believe it.
What had happened to that tall grave young man from Philadelphia who dressed so carefully? Where had he gone? The fugitive who slinked across New Providence this morning in no way resembled him. George’s face was so scorched by the sun, and his light brown eyebrows so bleached, that his mouth must have shown like a knife-slash, while his dark blue eyes gleamed bright. The backs of his hands were a furious red. His head itched, again from the sun. That duck-fuzz, his hair, was growing in, but gingerly, the raffish raffia hat tickled his scalp. That hat, the one Monk Evans had passed him, was the most incongruous touch of all.
Here then was Mr. Lawyer Rounsivel, he of the impeccable manners, the irreproachable past—an overgrown ragamuffin now, a stuffed Guy Fawkes, a scarecrow, a buffoon.
Captain Crossbones Page 5
