Up from below, feet on the ladder and on the deck, and someone said, “They was all bloody below, and drunk as lords. Not a one but these bloody sluts would stand and fight!”
The hands that held her pinned now rolled Mary over on her stomach and pulled her arms behind her. A thin rope cut into her wrists as she was bound and she thought, Please, oh please, kill me now, but she knew that it would not be that simple, not that clean and quick.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
JOHN RACKAM sat in his prison cell. It was the place from whence he had come, and from thence he would be taken to the place of his execution where he would be hanged by the neck until he was dead.
He sat perfectly still, his eyes staring straight ahead. The words ran around and around. Hanged by the neck until I am dead. Hanged by the neck until I am dead. Until I am dead. Sometimes the idea seemed as real and immediate as a gushing wound, and sometimes it did not seem to make sense.
Bells rang outside and he jumped a little, and his stomach did a twisting thing. Yesterday the trial had ended. Today they would hang him. Extraordinary, how time could creep so slowly by, and at the very same instant, fly away.
Will they hang my body up in chains? he wondered. That thought had not occurred to him, but of course, they would. They would debase his beautiful body by hanging it from a gibbet, so that all could see the fate that awaited pirates.
He looked down at himself, pictured this body, this fine body, which had given so much pleasure to so many women, hanging from chains, bloated, putrid, being picked at by birds. The flesh would turn black and then slough off until there was only the ragged clothing, his beloved white calico coat and breeches, flapping in tatters, and inside the clothes, the bones of Calico Jack. Jack had seen enough bodies hung in chains to know what he soon would be.
The thought made him want to puke, but he had eaten nothing in days and there was nothing for his stomach to throw up. He swallowed hard, tried to think on something else.
At the far end of the cellblock a key rattled in the door, and Jack jerked up and did not move beyond that. He could not move, he could only sit and wait. The sensation was perfectly the same as that moment, his last moment as a free prince, down in the Pretty Anne’s hold, when he heard the scuttle open, heard the sounds of his enemy coming for him.
He had gone below because the fight was out of him and there was no reason at all for him to be on deck. There was nothing he could do there. The others could call him a coward, they could maroon him, they could do as they wished; he was done and so he just went below.
And to his surprise, the rest followed him and took up where they had left off in their celebrations, as if there were not another ship around for a thousand miles.
The others—Fetherston, Corner, Harwood, the turtlers—had continued the revelry in earnest, drinking hard, shouting at one another, and only their tendency to speak of the end of things, toasting the short life but a merry one, gave any indication that they were in any way aware of their fate.
That was the difference between Jack and the others in the hold, and Jack alone knew it. He would not fight because he was a coward, and they would not fight because they were so utterly without fear that they did not care. He knew how pathetic it was, cowering below while overhead, Anne Bonny and Mary Read stood the deck alone in the face of their enemy. He could not believe how long the fight lasted—it was only two women, for the love of God! But they must have fought like wildcats, because it was some moments before it was quiet again.
And Jack knew that for all the fantasies he had, sitting in his cell, about escape, all his dreams about fighting his way out of prison, about pulling some clever ruse to gain his freedom, he would, in truth, march placidly to the gallows, do as he was told, and hang by the neck until he was dead.
The door opened at the far end of the cellblock and footsteps echoed around the stone building and from the other cells the Pretty Annes hooted and jeered, but Jack sat silent.
The footsteps stopped outside his cell and he looked up at the unsympathetic face of Chief Justice William Nedham, and behind him, the jailor and the bailiff and Mr Norris, the Register.
It is time . . . Jack thought, but he could not reckon why Nedham was there. Once Lawes had passed his judgment, the Chief Justice’s job was over. It was in the hangman’s hands now.
The jailor opened the cell and Nedham swept in and said, “John Rackam, I wish to ask you a few questions this morning.”
Jack just looked at him and nodded. Norris came in behind the Chief Justice and sat himself on the bench opposite Jack. He had a writing tablet and a pen and ink bottle, which he arranged beside him.
Nedham spoke again. “I would you would depose to us all that you know of the willing involvement of one Anne Bonny, alias Bonn, in any of the piracies, felonies, and robberies committed on the high seas of which you and the others were lately convicted.”
He stopped, as if no more needed to be said, but Jack did not quite understand. Alias Bonn?
“Annie . . . ?” he said, weakly. Oh, he wants me to say that Annie is guilty as well! “Annie? No, I know not of her willing involvement. She was in love with me, do you see? Poor, silly girl, and see what has come of it . . .”
Nedham scowled at him, but Jack did not care. He would say no more on that subject.
“Very well, then. What know you of the willing involvement of one Mary Read in any of the piracies, felonies, and robberies committed on the high seas of which you and the others were lately convicted?”
“Mary Read . . .” He had not thought of her as he sat here, awaiting his fate. Mary Read. Damn her. How much of this was her fault? What if she had not come between him and Annie, what might have happened then? How might his fate have been different? He had often wondered what unnatural things she had led Anne to, during their long stay in Cuba.
“Mary Read . . . well, let me see now. Sure, she came aboard us, in the guise of a young man. One day I do recall falling into a conversation with her. I did not then know her sex, you see . . .”
Jack sat more upright, warming to his story. “I asked her what pleasure she could have, being concerned in such an enterprise where her life was continually in danger from fire or sword. I told her she must be sure of a bad death if she should be taken alive.
“But bold as brass she said to me, she answered that as to hanging, she thought it no great hardship, for, were it not for that, every cowardly fellow would turn pirate and so infest the seas, that men of courage must starve.”
Nedham turned to look at Norris, and Norris looked up from his frenetic writing and raised his eyebrows at this. And Jack, who did recall a conversation somewhat along those lines, was pleased to see that he was giving the Chief Justice what he desired.
“Mary Read said this to you?” Nedham asked.
“Yes, Your Honor. And she said that if it was put to the choice of the pirates, they would not have the punishment be less than death, the fear of which kept some dastardly rogues honest. She said that many of those who are now cheating the widows and orphans, and oppressing their poor neighbors who have no money to obtain justice, would then rob at sea, and the oceans would be crowded with rogues, like the land, and no merchant would venture out, so that the trade, in a little time, would not be worth the following.”
Jack shut his mouth, afraid that he had already said too much, that he had dulled his credibility with too many words. But the Chief Justice did not seem to think so. He nodded to Norris, and Norris blotted the deposition and presented it to Jack to sign.
Jack looked at all the neat letters scrawled across the page. He guessed that they represented the story he had just told, but of course, he did not know. He could not read.
Norris held the pen out for him. Jack looked up at him, then down at the pen, and then took the quill in uncertain fingers. He could never get the feel for holding a pen correctly. He saw Norris and Nedham exchange glances, and then Norris pointed to a spot at the bottom of the page and said, in
a most condescending tone, “Your mark there will suffice.”
Jack felt himself flush, humiliated, full of guilt for what he had just done. Well, the bitch said words to that effect, he thought, and she was as willing a pirate as ever sailed, damn her eyes. He scrawled a shaky X where Norris had indicated.
“Good,” said Nedham. He took the deposition from Jack’s hands and breezed out of the cell, saying, “Jailor, you may bring the condemned to the women’s cell and then deliver him unto the sheriff.” The Chief Justice was done with John Rackam.
Oh, God, is this it? Jack thought. Was that my final moment in my cell, given over to deposing against Mary bloody Read?
The jailor came in and Jack quietly suffered him to put the manacles on his wrists and lead him out of the cell.
The portly jailor led the way, and behind him followed Jack, and behind Jack two armed soldiers. They walked down the length of the prison building and from various cells, the others called out to him, saying, “There you go, Jack, lad! A short life and a merry one!” and “We’ll see you in hell, Calico Jack! Spare a drink for us!” but Jack kept his eyes on the floor five feet ahead and said nothing.
They stepped through the door at the far end that opened into the big stucco room with the polished tiles. Jack was used to turning to the left to go to the courtroom, but this time the jailor led him across the room to the door opposite, and when he opened it Jack saw that it led to yet another long row of cells.
This would be the cellblock where the women were held, this whole part of the prison for two dangerous women. Without a word the jailor headed down the alley between the cells and Jack followed quietly behind. In a moment he would be facing Anne, would hear her judgment of him, and he was more afraid than he had been at any time since Barnet had turned them over to the militia guard in Davis’s Cove and they had been marched to Spanish Town jail.
He had not spoken to Anne in weeks, and then just a fleeting word or two as they were led from one place or another. He had not really spoken to her since their capture. She had not spoken to him at all.
Oh, God, I am to die today, Annie. Won’t you send me to my death with a kind word? Jack could hardly remember his mother. He had only vague, shadowy images of comfort and love. That was what he wanted.
At last the jailor stopped and turned and Jack knew that Anne must be in that cell and he was very afraid. He glanced to his right, to the cell across from Anne. Mary Read was sitting there, sitting on the stone bench, one foot propped up and her arms folded on top of her knee. Their eyes met and Jack looked away quickly, and hoped that his face did not flush red, though it felt as if it had.
He looked to his left. Anne was there, standing, her hands gripping the bars that held her in. Jack’s eyes lingered on those hands, those long, delicate fingers. Such delicate reeds, he had loved to kiss them.
Jack’s eyes traveled up to Anne’s face. Her lips were pressed tight together and there was fury in her eyes and it made Jack’s stomach twist again. That was not the face he hoped would send him off to eternity.
“Annie . . .” he said; it was barely a whisper. “Annie, my love, I go off to die . . .”
He paused and there was silence and he looked into her eyes. He wanted to hug her, to lie down with her, to rest his face on her breasts and weep, to cry out all his sorrow and let his tears melt into the coarse fabric of her prison dress. He wanted comfort; for once in his miserable life he wanted tenderness and understanding. But there were the bars between them, and there was Annie’s expression, which was harder still, and more unyielding.
“Annie . . . ?”
“Well, Jack,” said Anne, and her voice was hoarse and there was no tenderness there, “I am sorry to see you here, but if you had fought like a man, you need not hang like a dog.”
It was quiet again and they looked in one another’s eyes. Then Anne let go of the bars and turned her back on him and walked to the far end of the cell and that was the end of it.
Jack stared at her back. Say something, say bloody something! But he could think of nothing to say, could think of nothing that he might do, so he just stood there until the jailor took him gently by the arm and led him away.
He was led out of the building to the parade ground on the south end. He blinked hard in the brilliant sunlight and the tears streamed down his face. In the open air he could see how utterly filthy he was, his clothing torn and stained, his hands black with dirt, and his face, he imagined, was just as bad. Was it any wonder he was so quickly condemned?
On the parade ground stood an open wagon, and in the wagon sat George Fetherston, Richard Corner, John Davies, and John Howell, the men who would join Jack that day. Flanking the wagon, a detail of horse guard sat on top of restless mounts, their helmets and pikes flashing in the sun.
With some difficulty, Jack, his hands still manacled, climbed into the wagon and took a place on the bench next to John Davies. The teamster made a sound and the wagon lurched and rolled forward, and the horse guard was under way as well and the little parade moved along toward Gallows Point.
They rumbled down cobbled streets and the wagon made a terrible clatter and shook the men in the back. They were silent, save for George Fetherston, who roared out at the crowds who lined the street to watch them pass, cursing at them and cheering them, to the watchers’ delight. He belted out song as they rolled along, managing to outdo the iron-rimmed wheels in volume.
My name is Captain Kidd, who has sailed,
My name is Captain Kidd, who has sailed,
My name is Captain Kidd;
What the laws did still forbid,
Unluckily I did while I sailed,
And then Fetherston sang the chorus as well:
While I sailed!
The horse guard kept their eyes ahead and made no attempt to shut him up. There was not much with which you could threaten a man who was scheduled to die within the hour.
Jack watched the whitewashed buildings, the cobbled street, the crowds, all receding as they rolled along, and he thought it was like his life, just flowing past, and somewhere up ahead, where he could not see it, the end.
Everything looked sharper, more colorful, and there was a weird, slow quality, very like a dream. Jack recalled that in England, when he was a boy, there would on occasion come a freezing rain, and when it was done everything would be coated in a thick layer of ice, down to the most delicate tree branches, everything encased in this clear, deep layer.
That was how he felt. Like he was coated in ice, like there was a thick layer surrounding him that dulled what he should feel sharply. How else to explain the fact that he was not afraid? He would be dead, and soon, and yet there was just an odd sort of feeling about it. A little disturbing, a little unreal, but not frightening, really.
George Fetherston continued to sing:
From Newgate now in carts we must go!
From Newgate now in carts we must go!
From Newgate now in carts,
With sad and heavy hearts,
To have our due deserts we must go!
Then the wagon came to a halt at Gallows Point. There were soldiers there, and none too gently they pulled the condemned men from the cart and marched them toward the gallows. Jack could see it now: just a simple wooden frame, ten feet high, with a noose hanging from the crossbeam, and gathered around, a hundred or so people who had turned out to watch the spectacle. But still he did not feel the panic that he had always thought would attend this event. He was less afraid now than he had been when they sighted the Guarda del Costa, much less afraid, though his demise was much more certain.
Odd, he thought.
The soldiers pushed the condemned men off to one side, flanking them with muskets ready while the manacles were struck from their hands. The teamster who had driven the cart to Gallows Point now backed it up to the wooden frame where it might be used as a platform from which the condemned were pushed, and he soon had the cart in position, so practiced were he and his horse in that evo
lution.
There was a great deal of sound—the creaking of the cart, the chatter of the crowd, Fetherston’s ramblings, the wind blowing through the high palms—but it was all one in Jack’s ears, all one big buzzing sound of the living world, and he knew soon it would be lost to him.
He wondered for the first time what might become of him when he was dead. Not his body, but him, whatever it was that was John Rackam. He wondered if perhaps the preachers had been right all along, if that should give him pause. But still he felt ice-encased and he could not muster the energy to care.
More hands grabbed his arms, men on either side, and through no will of his own he was propelled toward the cart and then up on the cart, five feet above the ground, where the hangman stood waiting for him.
The hangman turned him around so that he was looking out over the heads of the watching crowd, and shuffled him forward to the very edge of the cart. Jack saw the hangman’s hands take up the noose and saw it pass over his head and felt the rough manila rope around his neck, felt it scrape his skin as the executioner pulled the noose taut.
Someone was saying something in an official monotone, his sentence of death, no doubt, but it was only part of the big sound and was no more distinguishable as words than the wind in the trees.
Jack looked out past the shoreline and the sandy spit of land, out toward the ocean, the great, rolling, flashing blue ocean, his home for most of his adult life.
What a strange, strange thing this is . . . he thought. How very odd to die.
He had not been a bad sailor, not at all. Perhaps if he had stayed an honest seaman and not gone on the account, then things might have ended up differently for him. But that had not happened, and here he was.
I am not afraid, he thought. Here he was, at the profound moment, the bitter end of his life, and he was not afraid. It gave him a surge of pride and happiness, a glimpse of redemption after all of the self-loathing brought on by his cowardice over the years. He felt warm and light.
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