Hunt for White Gold

by Mark Keating

  The head flashed into the pan with the spark of an empty charge. A candle snuff of smoke between them and nothing more. No bullet. No death. Just answer enough for Coxon to finish his sentence grimly.

  ‘Now I know it. I can prepare.’

  He looked no longer into the cell and buried the pistol back in his belt, ignoring the jeers to his left and barging past the guard returning with his pewter mug and muslin-covered plate.

  The Milford and the Delicia. Enough. More than a match. The night was coming in. And it would soon be dark enough for shadows to be upon the waters.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Eleven of the Clock

  Israel Hands helmed the skiff. The small single-masted boat towed behind Blackbeard’s Adventure was now free. She was fast and nimble enough to carry him and Palgrave Williams around the north shore of Providence and into Nassau harbour. The Adventure with Blackbeard still aboard lay anchored at Goulding Cay at the island’s most western point, and would wait the night out until the skiff returned, with or without Palgrave, depending on how well he had played his part, or how much Israel believed he had.

  Palgrave studied the young man with the handlebar moustache and bare chest. Israel lounged against the tiller, his eyes fixed on the horizon and looking straight through Palgrave, occasionally checking the sail as she luffed under the slight wind but leaning back lazily for the most part, his left hand tapping out a rhythm against his belt, never far from the pull of his pistol or his knife should Palgrave have a mind to dance.

  Palgrave settled back and watched the black coastline crawling by, belying the swift weaving of the boat. Dark now, past eleven at least, the sky a blue-black under a quartermoon, the island darker still, her palm trees towering over the beaches silhouetted against the night.

  Palgrave had no weapons and carried only the leather satchel he had first set out with three years ago with Sam Bellamy and their dreams of treasure hunting amongst the sunken wrecks of the Spanish Main. That seemed a time ago now. He wondered if his wife had remarried and if he might ever return to the Rhode Island colony – if he might ever return alive anywhere – as he took in the dark man at the stern of the boat.

  There are those who might also wonder why a forty-year-old man, a respectable goldsmith with a dutiful wife and two young children, would suddenly throw in all he had and follow the life of a pirate and rover, having never before trod upon the ocean.

  To Palgrave and thousands more it had always been simple: I might be a millionaire today or dead tomorrow. Hoy por mi, mañana por ti. Today me, tomorrow thee. The beating of his heart beneath his chest was enough, even with the fear that charged the air around him this night.

  An hour later and Israel had brought the skiff around Long and Silver Cays and through the sleeve between the harbour and Hog Island, the four-mile stretch of land that kept the warships out. The courting cries of the cochons-marron howled out over the bay from the forested island, breaking the cold silence between the two men, and the soft pulse and bounce of the thimble jellyfish eerily lighted their way into shore.

  Palgrave was encouraged by their degree of cooperation in mooring the boat to the jetty; Israel had even put out a friendly hand to assist Palgrave as he disembarked.

  I am not old, he thought. I am not dead. I was a pirate with Black Sam Bellamy. I am the most wanted man in America. Who will remember the name Israel Hands when he is dead?

  His confidence shrivelled as Hands pricked Palgrave’s pot-belly with his dagger’s tip. ‘Remember I’m here, Palgrave, waiting for you.’ He nodded down the wooden jetty to the beach and the burning brazier with two soldiers shuffling around it. ‘You mind that.’

  Palgrave tipped his hat and clopped off across the planks, leaving the smell of the pirate behind with the skiff.

  The brazier’s glare destroyed what little night vision the soldiers guarding the beach might have enjoyed. A whale could have beached and they would not have seen it; thus they jumped as Palgrave stepped out from behind a curtain of black and swept off his hat.

  ‘Whence came you?’ one of them squeaked, his musket rattling.

  Suddenly breathless, Palgrave gave his speech to the private.

  ‘My name is Palgrave Williams. I am late of Black Sam Bellamy’s crew. One of his commanders. I come to give myself up to Governor Rogers. I come to take the pardon of my King.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The guard’s charges were quiet. The cells were for the condemned, and the condemned of the colonies had nothing left to sign to gain their freedom. They were always quiet.

  It had been hours since Coxon had quit the cells but would be at least another two before the man was relieved. He sat at his table, his cheese and beer long gone, and smoked his third pipe of the evening, all from Devlin’s tobacco. It was smoother than the Bermuda sweepings he could normally afford.

  ‘Hey!’ Hugh Harris hung his arms through his cell and whistled. ‘If there ain’t no belly timber for us, lobster, how’s about some tobacco? Just a bowl or two for me and Lawson here, eh?’

  ‘Quiet, filth,’ the guard leant back on his chair. ‘Bad enough I’m in here with you, I don’t have to hear you an’ all.’

  ‘Aye,’ Hugh snapped back. ‘Reckon it’s probably only a magistrate’s mistake that you ain’t in here too, mate. What happened? Too scared to hang?’

  ‘Not stupid that’s all, filth.’ He grinned through his pipe over his shoulder to Hugh.

  ‘Aye, you are. All lobsters are. That’s why you’re lobsters. Can’t tie knots.’

  ‘Least I ain’t the one waiting to hang. Now quiet down, filth.’ But in truth he enjoyed the exchange and the baiting.

  Adam Cowrie was now at his bars, a face not yet twenty, younger even than the lobster. ‘Why would they hang us? We’re taking the pardon ain’t we?’ Despite the warmth of their prison his voice had a chill, a cold breath.

  The guard looked at the boy. He knew the look behind the eyes and remembered it on himself more than once. He raised his voice wickedly for them all. ‘Oh, your cap’n be taking the pardon, sonny. Ain’t no use in the rest of you. I reckon “Old Rusty Guts” is up to about twenty of you hanged already. And they had taken the pardon. How do you favour he feels about them’s just arrived all covered in blood?’

  ‘Reckon he fears us,’ Harris laughed.

  Dandon’s voice whispered from his door. ‘Did you say you were not stupid, soldier?’

  ‘Aye, ponce. I ain’t as stupid as you lot anyways.’

  ‘Comprenez-vous le francais?’ Dandon asked.

  The soldier swung his head to Dandon, the pipe hanging off his lip.

  ‘J’ai pensé autant,’ Dandon said, ‘I thought as much.’ He shouted in French across the gaol to Devlin in his cell. ‘So, Patrick,’ he winked at the soldier and then aimed his voice over him. ‘Does all go well? Are we ahead yet?’

  Devlin came to his door. ‘All goes well enough, my friend,’ he yelled back, even affording a Brittany accent.

  ‘What occurred above?’

  ‘It is here, Dandon. In Rogers’ chambers. The Chinese gun.’

  ‘Ho,’ Dandon clucked scornfully. ‘Then all we need to do is walk out of here, carry it out from under the governor’s nose and swim with it upon our backs to Charles Town.’ Dandon waved a hand to the direction of the stairs. ‘After you, Captain.’

  The soldier looked back and forth between them, unsure whether this exchange meant trouble or not. Being unable to follow the conversation afforded him some consternation. Devlin, unused to Dandon’s sarcasm, shot him a dark look back across the room.

  ‘I got us here. The Shadow is coming. Bill is to look for the Talefan. He may even be here by now.’

  ‘And then? I see tomorrow as uncertain for us even though Howell will do well with our gold and Coxon with the rest of it.’ He kicked his feet as cockroaches as large as eggs scuttled across his shoes.

  ‘Do you not trust me, Dandon? I thought you wanted the game, as I recall, back
in that tavern in Charles Town?’

  ‘I prefer it when the cards are more in my favour, Captain.’ He slunk back into his cell.

  Devlin spoke in English for all to hear, ‘I did what I had to do. To save our six lives.’

  He resumed his French for Dandon, no longer visible to him, recounting how he had bargained with Howell to save any further whittling of both crews. That Howell could take their gold to bring them into Providence. Howell to be his own captain. Have his own ship and theirs. But warned that the Shadow was behind them over the horizon and would not take kindly to any other course if Howell did not comply.

  Coxon would at least not find all the gold but just enough to appease Rogers. Howell had his anchor cable and buoys hung ‘apeake’, straight down and tight to the hull, with the gold beneath the Mumvil’s keel.

  Dandon reappeared, his French now coarse and bitter. ‘And just what of the Shadow, Patrick? Two warships stand off without. A garrison of soldiers is here within and us all lost as much as Peter Sam.’ The others looked up at the sound of the quartermaster’s name.

  The soldier had heard enough. He sprung up, his musket at his hip and pointing into Dandon’s cell. ‘That’ll do! No more dago talk, the lot of you, so help me!’

  Dandon lifted his palms apologetically. Devlin carried on, in English. ‘Trust Black Bill like you do me, lads, and Coxon to give us a hand. He’s to take one of the ships out on patrol. He told me himself. Bill will see the Delicia’s petticoats long before they see him. He has his orders, long agreed.’

  He thought back to the last time he had shaken hands with Bill, aboard the Shadow, climbing down into the boat to row to the Talefan. Bill had confessed to him how he and Peter Sam had almost changed course a year ago at The Island. Almost left Devlin and the others to their fate. The words almost whispered themselves off his lips but he held them in: But you came back, Bill. And you would again.

  ‘Don’t fret, lads. This is an English cell with fine Englishmen to look after us. What more could an Irishman want?’

  The soldier listened and took in carefully the words of the pirate who ignored the loaded musket just yards from him. ‘That’s better,’ he said, and returned to his seat and waited for the end of his watch.

  John Coxon had paused. Just for a moment he queried the reason and sense of removing the Milford to trawl the coast, but in passing the Delicia at rest two miles west from Dick’s Point, blocking the entrance to the harbour, watchful and serene, his resolve became certain. He thought on the Shadow. Her three hundred tons would keep her out of the harbour and her broadside was no threat to the twenty eighteen-pounders per side boasted by the Delicia.

  Coxon sent one boat to the Delicia, a sail-cloth packet accompanying her, informing Captain Gale, now commanding Rogers’ guardship, of the need to test the eyes of his starbolins that watch for sight of the pirate.

  A cable length away, south of Delicia’s lee, Coxon rowed the six hundred feet to the Milford. Urgently, on arrival, almost before the whistle had stopped piping him aboard, he began poring over his map of Providence and the islands. He began to imagine what he would do, where he would creep ashore in the middle of the night.

  The soundings gave limited service to a large ship. It was too dangerous to come in from the south. The only landable shore lay on the west coast but between it and Nassau was nothing but almost sixteen miles of jungle and swamp with a massive lake in its centre.

  He placed a finger on the map. He was alone and took conference only with his own intelligence and the spectre of Devlin plotting over his shoulder.

  So, a ship could anchor west at Goulding Cay and row in but the jungle would make a heavy passage. His heart beat faster as he ran his divider along the points and cays of the north shore.

  There were beaches aplenty north and enough low ground for a landing party to march perhaps four or five miles to come in behind the town. He poured a draught of Madeira sack. He would point his bow west and follow the shore, at least two miles out to be certain of missing the reefs and beds, making sure to sound all the way. His pencil scraped in his shaking fingers.

  He would patrol past Goulding’s Cay and Northwest Point, and maybe find them there or carry on further north to North Cay and then back again. And again, and again, until they came.

  He swallowed his wine and twirled his divider over the map, stepping along the shore, adding the distance and already picturing the best sail to set.

  Thirty-two miles would bring him to North Cay. It would have to be four knots at night for safety and the lowest profile. He snapped open his watch: it was after eleven already. By six bells, seven o’clock in the morning, he would have made his first pass of North Cay. He clapped the watch shut.

  At worst, thought Coxon, he was overreacting to the presence of his old servant. The land was protected by a hundred soldiers and twice as many militia. The island had lost the Rose and the Shark but the Milford and Delicia, both fifth rates, could hold fast. At best he was providing much needed extra duty for the idlers his Milfords had inevitably become over the past months.

  He stepped briskly out onto the night-deck, almost into the back of Sailing Master Halesworth, and began snapping orders to his lieutenants who, fresh from their cots, were still pulling on their coats and patting down their hair.

  Whistles blew and brails shook free from cleats and pins – the deck alive, a street-market of shouts and tramping feet. Coxon walked up to the quarterdeck and waited for the capstan’s bars below to wind them away and free.

  There was no harm in a little patrol. Perhaps it would prove a waste of time but perhaps not. It would be just enough exercise to shake the land from his coat anyways. But Devlin had arrived. Again on a smaller ship, as before. He and that doctor, and the Shadow nowhere in sight. All as before. As on The Island where Devlin had trumped him before. Never again.

  The Milford sighed reluctantly as she lurched out of a dream and more shouts came from the fore, but Coxon was now looking out over the stern back to the dim light of the round fort sitting above the town, north of the harbour.

  He was sailing away. Away from Devlin and the gold that he had still not settled on. He was leaving the governor of New Providence, Eleuthera, Harbour Island and Abaco alone with the pirate Devlin. But with one hundred soldiers, two hundred militia and two warships with two hundred and fifty men.

  Nevertheless, alone with the pirate Devlin.

  He sipped the coffee that his valet, Oscar Hodge, passed into his hand. He had missed something, he was sure of it. Something in Devlin’s grin as always told him so. But he could not just sit and wait for the other shoe to drop. The Shadow would be somewhere. He stared on at the old Spanish tower as it withdrew slowly, until the light from her windows merged into one brilliant red, sparkling jewelled eye watching him leave.

  Woodes Rogers leant back in his chair. ‘I am intrigued, Mister Williams. Go on with your proposal.’ Despite the hour Rogers had not retired for the evening, his hours of sleep engaged instead with the letters from merchants who were reporting an increase in Spanish and French activity around the islands – dangerous reports and uncomfortable reading now that the new war was spreading and any admiral worth his salt could see Providence as a watch-tower for Florida and the supply route to the Mediterranean. The only good news from his own island was that the pineapple they had brought with them was prospering. Conversely, the new populace was wilting with the humours of the fever. This Palgrave Williams had offered a welcome distraction when Rogers’ secretary had brought the stranger into his office.

  Palgrave swallowed hard, relieved that he had made it thus far without being removed. ‘As I said, sir, I can put up papers of ownership that will confirm that the gun belongs to me, but in light of my past endeavours I am willing to forego that ownership, which as you see by the receipt I have furnished, is worth a substantial sum, if you will allow me to retrieve the letters that are inside.’

  Rogers peered dubiously at the receipt from Heston’s a
uction house. ‘This could all be forged of course. You are infamous in the colonies for being one of Bellamy’s commanders. Suppose this is all some trick that is not apparent to me now, but for which I will suffer later? And what is Blackbeard’s interest in all of this?’

  Palgrave stepped forward nervously. ‘No trick, Your Worship.’ He drew from his satchel a square folded packet. ‘I have here a letter signed by Captain Teach himself in which he swears to give himself up to the council in Charles Town, to where he will sail immediately if I afford him the letters forthwith.’ He flopped the packet down before Rogers who unfolded it carefully.

  ‘And you are to remain here? Once these letters are passed over?’

  Palgrave confirmed that he was to take the Act of Grace and willingly put himself to the mercy of Rogers’ governorship.

  ‘And what do I stand … what does the Crown stand to gain from allowing such an odd transaction?’

  Palgrave’s eyes had wandered to the Chinese gun lying innocently beneath the sacks and discarded articles in the darkest corner of the room. ‘You, sir, stand to gain an ornamental object of great historical value. An object that Heston’s sold to me for fourteen hundred pounds that I will sign over to you. You gain the fact that myself, who has eluded the best of the King’s men, chose to surrender to your grace above all others. And that the scourge of Blackbeard will come to an end also, as that paper testifies, for the same reason: your great stature among these islands.’

  Rogers hummed thoughtfully over the hand of Blackbeard on the paper before him. ‘These “letters” that you prize have some value to yourself and Teach that I am not to be a party to?’

  ‘They are letters of property from my father, he who was Attorney-General for the Rhode Island Plantation. I bargained with Teach that they would be his if he gave me passage to your protection. Teach too has seen that there is no long future to be had in piracy. He wishes to take the pardon as well as I.’