Captain in Calico

by George MacDonald Fraser

  He had no answer to this, and for a moment she sat, her eyes weighing and searching him. At last he said: ‘What use to talk, then? I’d best be gone, I think.’

  But at this she seemed surprised. ‘So soon? Where’s the need, at least for a day or so until your wounds are quite healed?’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘I said “no” to some foolish talk of flying with you. But that’s no reason for you to stamp away in the sulks. Is it not pleasant here?’

  ‘Oh, aye, with your husband lurking at corners, mighty pleasant—’

  ‘You are his guest,’ she interrupted, and her voice was suddenly hard. ‘Himself he said so. Oh, I know the dirty grin on his face. Well, give him poor jest for poor jest. Take him at his word. What’s to hinder you?’

  He knew there were several reasons, but it would have taken a more cold-blooded man than Rackham to enunciate them. He hesitated, and then: ‘As you will,’ he said, and she seemed well pleased.

  They went out of the shed, and as they paced together across the compound, Rackham asked: ‘If you hate the man so much, how did you come to wed him in the first place?’

  Anne Bonney shrugged. ‘He bought me. It is his way. He found me in Charles Town, when I was seventeen, a maid in a tavern where my mother was linen-mistress. I was virtuous, too, if you’ll believe it, and he found he could not have me as he pleased. I wondered at the time that he was foolish enough to offer marriage to a lass of no account, but he did.’ She laughed. ‘He might have had a score of women, ladies of some consequence, for he is a wealthy man. But he wanted me. At least, he wanted my body, and no other would do. So he bought it. He made me the mistress of this’ – she gestured around her – ‘and gave my mother a pension. I have wanted for nothing since, and I kept my part of the bargain, which was to be his bed-mate. At first I was afraid he would tire of me. Child as I was, I had seen something of men. But he did not tire.’ Her voice sounded flat and hopeless.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Then? Some months ago I told him I would remain his wife, but I would be his mistress no longer. God knows I was no cheat. I had made a bargain and was ready to keep it, although I shuddered every time he touched me. But there were some things I would not do; things he tried to force me to do, in the name of our marriage. Things that only the mind of a beast could imagine.’ Her voice was trembling with anger. ‘It was then I told him I would kill him if he tried to touch me again. He said nothing at the time just looked at me with his foul smile and said ‘As you wish, my dear. It is very well.’ He knew I meant what I had said. And so he hates me; not only because I refused him, but because I know what a vile soul he has. And yet, I know from the way he looks at me that he still wants me. I can feel his eyes on me whenever we are in a room together, or when I pass him in the house, shifting and watching, but never meeting mine.’ The words were coming in a torrent now; in a moment she would break down. ‘He will drive me mad! Every day I feel I cannot bear it any longer!’ She was sobbing, but without tears, and Rackham was moved to put his arm about her shoulders.

  ‘Easy, now, easy,’ he told her. ‘He’ll do you no harm, that I promise.’ The discovery that she had a woman’s weakness despite her assumed worldliness gave him confidence, as she intended it should. ‘But can you not leave him, go into the town, say, and live there? You’re no defenceless female; you could fend for yourself.’

  Some of her wonted defiance crept back into her voice. ‘I promised to be his wife, and that I’ll remain. But it shall be in name only. Besides, I manage his house to his satisfaction and my own; sometimes it is very pleasant here. I’m not so great a fool that I can’t see the advantages of being Mistress Bonney. Only – only, when these black moods come on me, when I have to talk to him, or see him, I could wish I were back in Charles Town. But I know I would never go back to that. I’ve known poverty and hardship, and I know that a woman needs a man to protect her, even such a man as James Bonney.’

  ‘Poor lass,’ said Rackham.

  ‘Poor lass be damned,’ said Anne Bonney. ‘He bids you stay here so that I may give him cause to go whining to the Governor that I’m a faithless wife. Well, you’ll stay, and if I catch his dirty eye on me I’ll spit in it.’

  They had reached the garden in front of the house by now, and Rackham was about to mount the steps, but she detained him, her hand on his wrist. He turned to find that the whimsical smile that the events of the last hour had driven from her face had returned.

  ‘Are all pirates so gallant and kindly?’ she asked.

  Rackham dissembled his confusion with a laugh. ‘Gallant and kindly?’ he echoed. And he added, a little puzzled: ‘No one has ever said such a thing to me before.’

  ‘Perhaps no one has known you so well,’ she replied. ‘Now be off to your own room. My patient has been too long in the sun.’

  When he had taken leave of her she stood looking after him for a moment, thoughtfully tapping her full lower lip with a ringed finger. Then she smiled a slow smile which at length broke into a soft laugh, much to the astonishment of a passing black slave who saw his eccentric mistress, dressed in her man’s clothes, apparently laughing at nothing. Under his startled eyes Anne Bonney tossed her red head and strode off, humming a catch as she went.

  8. CAPTAIN HARKNESS CONVERSES

  In what had passed between her and Rackham since their chance meeting outside the Cinque Ports, Anne Bonney had been something less than honest. That she was strongly attracted to him is certain, but she was not deeply in love with him, and would not have scrupled to discard him had he not provided her with a means whereby she believed she could realise an ambition she had long cherished.

  This was an ambition born in those early days when she had been a tavern-servant in Charles Town. Young Anne had realised then the probable fate of a woman of her station – a lifetime of drudgery and poverty if she remained single, or an almost equally miserable existence if she married, as the wife of some lowly paid, overworked member of her own class. Either way there would be none of the luxuries which she saw enjoyed by the wealthy ladies of the colony, and it was on those luxuries that she had set her heart. Money, ease and power formed the triple goal for the tavern girl. James Bonney had supplied her with all three – up to a point, but Mistress Anne was not content with what, she soon realised, was a fairly modest rung on the ladder. She wanted more, much more, than a Bahaman plantation and a fairly rich husband whom she detested. She had advanced far enough in the social scale to begin thinking of the gay capitals of Europe which she had never seen, and of the kind of money that existed there, and it seemed, with the entry of Rackham into her life, that perhaps she had found the bridge on which she might cross to her heart’s desire.

  On the day after she had brought him to her home – and at that time her interest in him was still purely feminine – she had driven into Providence on some errand connected with the household. It was during this visit to the town that a chance remark opened the gate to what she believed would be her destiny.

  She had called at Mullen’s the draper’s, in Well Street, where she had encountered Captain Harkness, of the military, with two other officers. Gallantly the captain had exchanged pleasantries with her, and had commented, reprovingly, on the news that she had extended her hospitality to the notorious ex-pirate, Captain Rackham.

  ‘For look you, ma’am, he’s a dangerous rogue,’ he admonished her. ‘As ruthless and wanton a knave as ever sailed under canvas. In these outposts, and in these times, it is true that social barriers are not so … so, ah … rigid as would be the case elsewhere, and one must come and go very often in odd company. Duty demands it, and circumstances make strange bedfellows.’

  ‘Captain Harkness, you’ve been spying, by God,’ said Anne Bonney.

  The Captain coloured and made haste to explain. ‘You mistake my meaning, ma’am,’ said he, greatly shocked. ‘I vow you do. Good God, no, ma’am, I had not meant …’

  ‘And what did you mean, sir?’
asked Anne Bonney, enjoying his discomfiture.

  ‘Why, this, ma’am: it is not fitting that you should harbour this scoundrel,’ said the blunt soldier.

  ‘But the King has made him as good a citizen as you or I, Captain. He is pardoned, you remember.’

  Captain Harkness shook his head. ‘So is many another traitor, and that proves nothing.’ Aptly he quoted Holy Writ: ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?’

  ‘Or Calico Jack his shirt?’ suggested Mistress Bonney, and thereby convulsed the Captain’s friends.

  ‘Captain, you are too stern, too severe,’ she chided him, and he melted under the languorous twinkle of her grey eyes.

  ‘Perhaps I am, ma’am, perhaps so. But here it is only of concern for you. For he is a pirate, remember. And you are a woman. I tremble’ – a thing Captain Harkness had never done in his life – ‘for your safety, and shall continue so until that hardened, penniless robber is out from under your roof.’

  ‘Nay, now, not penniless,’ said Anne Bonney. ‘Or if he is, blame Governor Rogers. They tell me Captain Rackham had treasure when she was taken.’

  ‘Why, so he had,’ agreed one of the officers. ‘But he must whistle for it now, the rogue. Next week will see it on its way to England. Friend Harkness will be glad to see it go.’

  ‘And so I shall,’ sighed Harkness. He explained: ‘While it remains at the Fort I am responsible for it, ma’am. Oh, it’s safe enough, but I own I’ll be happier when I see it shipped for England. Then it will be another’s care.’

  ‘Aye, and a greater burden than I’d care to carry,’ put in one of his companions. ‘Half a million would be too much for me. I hope Captain Bankier sleeps sound of nights.’

  Anne Bonney turned wide eyes on the speaker. ‘Half a million, sir? Did the pirates’ treasure amount to so much? I thought such sums belonged only in the stories that old sailors tell of Morgan and Montbars.’

  Captain Harkness explained. ‘No, no, ma’am. The silver taken from the Kingston is only a small part of what is to be shipped home.’ He grew confidential, flattered by her interest. ‘As ye’ll perhaps know, the privateers have been active these many months past, and what they have brought back from their cruises amounts now to this considerable sum. This last treasure from the Kingston decided His Excellency. He now has more plunder bestowed in the Fort than he dares to keep, and I don’t blame him. So he has determined it must go home. God knows it was no easy decision, for the privateers are sloops, and too small for such a task, and he has few larger vessels to spare. But there it is: better to send it home and deplete his little fleet than to have it here where a Spanish raid might carry it off.’

  ‘But surely there is small likelihood of such a raid.’

  The Captain solemnly wagged his head. ‘Who can say, ma’am? They’ve tried it before. Given wind of what we have here, there’s no saying they won’t try it again. No, no. His Excellency is wise, I think. Better the slight risk a brig will run bearing it across the Atlantic than the greater risk of keeping it even a month longer here, ill-defended as we are.’

  The draper’s presence at their elbows reminded Captain Harkness that perhaps he had exceeded the bounds of prudence in speaking so freely; the shipment of treasure to be made the following week was, after all, a highly secret matter.

  ‘Ye’ll understand, of course, that no word of what I’ve told you must get about,’ he enjoined, but Mistress Bonney seemed not to hear him. She picked a piece of scarlet material from the draper’s tray, considered it, spread it along the outrageously low-cut bosom of her black taffeta gown, and invited his opinion.

  ‘Does it flatter me, Captain Harkness, this shade?’

  Her inattention was a reassurance in itself. Fascinated by the full charms which her question required him to inspect, he gallantly corrected her.

  ‘Nothing, ma’am, could flatter you,’ he protested, and with that their talk turned to lighter topics. Presently she took her leave, and drove home unusually thoughtful, pondering what Harkness had told her. And in that brief drive she saw that the whim which had prompted her to take Rackham to her home had provided her with an undreamed of opportunity.

  The idea which came to her as she drove back to the plantation was as wild and preposterous as any that ever passed through a woman’s mind. To the ordinary female, however daring or ambitious, it could never even have suggested itself, but Anne Bonney was no ordinary woman, which is why she has a unique place in British maritime history.

  Here, at a stroke, was a way to realise her dream of wealth unbounded. Half a million of money would shortly be on its way to England. Under her hand she had a filibuster captain, a man noted for his skill in seamanship as well as his courage and resource, wise in the ways of sea-robbery, an experienced practitioner in his trade. True, he had taken a Royal pardon, and might be reluctant to return to his old life. But he could be coaxed or constrained, she had no doubts of that. It must be done carefully and artfully, but it must be done.

  So that day and the next she went to work in her own way, and on that morning when they parted after their conversation in the plantation yard, Anne Bonney saw that the time was near when she could account the first part of her plan, the winning of Captain Rackham, completed.

  Yet she hesitated, fearing that in spite of the hold which she was obtaining over him, he would reject her plan for the appallingly risky venture it was. So another day passed, and it was only a visit from Major Penner on the following morning, anxious for news of his quartermaster-elect, that provided her with the spur she needed.

  The burly privateer brought with him a remarkable piece of tavern gossip which, he confided to Mistress Bonney, had best be kept from Rackham’s ears. What it amounted to was the suggestion that Woodes Rogers, obsessed by jealousy, had paid La Bouche to put a quarrel on Rackham and kill him. The grog-shops, declared the Major, were full of it, and he was fearful that if Rackham got wind of the tale he might be stung into some rash attempt at vengeance on the Governor. Whatever the outcome, Penner pointed out glumly, he would certainly be left without a quartermaster.

  Anne Bonney scoffed his rumour out of court, but when the Major had gone his way somewhat reassured, she paced about the verandah deep in thought. It seemed that this piece of nonsense might be turned to account: she knew the story of Rackham and Kate Sampson: he would be ready, she reasoned, to believe anything to the discredit of Woodes Rogers.

  She sought him out, and found him strolling on the dirt road through the coffee plantation. She had changed into her masculine riding habit, and her hair was held in place by a folded black silk kerchief run through a gold ring and looped on her shoulder. Being quick to notice his undisguised admiration of her, she asked herself why she had ever doubted that she could mould his will to hers.

  Seeing no profit in mincing words, she went straight to the point.

  ‘Do you know that you go in danger of your life?’ was her somewhat dramatic opening, and to her surprise he only seemed amused.

  ‘That is nothing new. Nor is this the first time I’ve been told so. What danger is it?’ Idly he flicked a pebble aside with his foot, and Anne Bonney smiled grimly to herself as she prepared to shatter his composure.

  ‘No ordinary danger. One very highly placed, and powerful. He seeks your life, and already he has hired one assassin to kill you.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Governor Woodes Rogers,’ she said, and Rackham swung round as though he had been stung. She misunderstood, and laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘Wait, John, wait. There’s no doubt of it. I have it from a sure source—’

  ‘Doubt it! Why should I doubt it?’ he cried. ‘It’s what I might have expected, by God!’

  ‘Then you believe me?’ She had expected him to scoff at her, make demands for proof.

  ‘Aye, I believe you. It’s not enough that he should cheat me, aye, and steal from me, too. I should have foreseen how that filibuster mind of his would work. He knew he had wron
ged me, and he looked to me to deal with him as a pirate would deal. And so I would have dealt when the time came. But he will forestall me, will he?’ He laughed almost in delight.

  Anne Bonney found this beyond her. He was actually standing there grinning at her.

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ she said.

  ‘How should you?’ He took her by the hand. ‘Listen, Anne. This great gentleman of a Governor, this Woodes Rogers, did me a great wrong. No matter what. But it was such a wrong that I had no way to pay it back to him. Now, if what you tell me is true, I see a way. Tell me, who was the assassin you spoke of?’

  But this was not at all to Mistress Bonney’s liking. It should have been for her to point the way. ‘What will you do?’ she asked uneasily.

  ‘Never fear, it’ll be a safe way. Tell me the name of this murderer, and I’ll squeeze a confession out of him that will have his dirty excellency squirming to find a way out of his own snare.’

  ‘And who would believe it?’ She smiled cynically.

  His face darkened. ‘Then there are other ways. The assassin’s knife always has two edges. There are more men than one in Providence willing to open a throat.’

  ‘Aye, to open yours, perhaps, but not the Governor’s.’

  He considered her through narrowed eyes. ‘And if I were to slit his throat myself, then? God knows, I’m not unwilling, and it’s the surest way of protecting myself.’

  She shook her head. ‘How many people saw him strike you on the Fort roof?’ she asked. ‘They would remember, and the law would require no evidence beyond that. Pirates are gone out of fashion these days.’

  ‘Then what the hell am I to do?’ he demanded. ‘Wait till that bloody King’s monkey gets me first?’

  Anne Bonney felt her heart beat a little faster. She looked round, over the fields of coffee plants, where the slaves mumbled and laughed as they worked. This was the time, she told herself. Never if not now. She would provide him with a weapon to strike Woodes Rogers and enrich himself at the same time.