Fire on Dark Water Read online

  Well, this particular night the chattering voices suddenly muted, warning me there was a newcomer in our midst who commanded everyone’s interest. I turned to the door to see a small young woman enter in one of Pierre’s finest outfits, her pretty blond ringlets glimmering as she walked. She had an envious air of superiority, cutting through the crowd as if she owned the place and wedging herself behind Captain Jennings’s chair as if she owned him. He immediately lifted his cheek and persuaded her to kiss him, which she did, her arched eyes all the while staring down Annie. Anne had just finished administering the most recent dollop of rum so she pushed her fire-flecked hair behind one ear and stood to meet the glare. The captain said casually, “Meg—this is Annie. Anne—meet Megan.” Neither woman spoke. They stood suspended in uncertainty not wanting to make the first move. I could see Meg’s face etched in lantern light and found her stunning. Her only flaw was a slight cross of the front teeth, but even this produced an appealing pout that drew the eye to her lips. Her gaze remained riveted on her rival.

  Anne recovered first and said, “Mrs. Jennings, I presume?”

  The table wobbled under snorts of laughter until the captain clarified with, “She’s my mistress, Annie. Same as you.”

  Anne was now pinned in Meg’s magnetic stare and of all the moves I might have anticipated, what she did next absolutely astounded me. She went over to where Meg was standing, whispered something in her ear, brushed two fingers lightly over the amply-stuffed stomacher, and then kissed her rival full on the mouth. Every man in the room was hypnotized and a hush fell over their companions. I couldn’t no way believe what I was seeing! I’d heard of such behavior but never actually witnessed it with my own popping eyes. I waited for Meg to slap her jaw, to recoil in horror or something. But as soon as their faces parted Meg took Annie’s head between both hands and returned the lusty kiss. One of the mates at the table groaned and another was feeling himself through the cloth of his breeches. The captain stood up, put an arm around both women, and led them away to his house down the street. “Are you not staying, Harry, to earn back your loot?” asked the winning companion at the table.

  The captain gave him a vulgar leer and said, “With these two darlings to plunder, I think I can forfeit the smaller prize.”

  And the men stared enviously after him, even Sharkey.

  I ain’t never seen such a guttural response since I snuck in that tent to watch the Dance of Veils. Something primal had just taken place that I didn’t understand. So I talked it over with Sharkey and Pierre, and later with Violet and some of my other customers. And this is what I learned. Men are attracted to women having sex together because they find it incredibly interesting. Now I ain’t never had no desire to see two blokes at it—so even when Dr. Simpson was debauching Bristol in the same room I always turned away and stuffed up my ears. But I guess to a sea dog who’s seen just about everything, the difference—the unknown—is always exciting. I’m told folks like to watch for voyeuristic motives, and I’m willing to concede there’s an aesthetic quality seeing pretty women enjoying each other. Of course, men are also fascinated with female lasciviousness and find willing participants achingly sexy. But what I could never understand were the men who think they’ll be allowed to join in the action—because unless they’re a Captain Jennings they’re cordially not invited.

  When James roused himself, around bedtime, we sobered him up enough to get home. He sat on the floor rubbing his eyes and asked, “Have they gone yet?” Violet nodded but didn’t say what had occurred downstairs. “Can’t I stay here the night?” he pleaded. We both shook our heads and were explaining the house rules when Jim’s eyes swelled with salt. “I can’t go back to the shop. . . .” he mumbled, hurriedly explaining that now Annie’s treasures were all sold they’d got no money. Violet ran downstairs just as Pierre was readying to retire. She pleaded on Jim’s behalf and the landlord agreed to let him stay the rest of the month until he found a suitable cruise, but only after Violet promised to make up the deficit herself.

  We learned the following day that Anne had moved into the captain’s house to live with him and Meg. So that, apparently, was that.

  8

  DRINK AND THE DEVIL

  SUMMER, 1717

  James Bonny was mine for the taking if I still wanted him. And for some unknown reason I found that I did. So I listened to his slurring tongue as he bemoaned the loss of a wife, gazed longingly as his bleary eyes grubbed for searing revenge, made sympathetic noises to bathe his scalded pride, and responded with enough encouragement to snag his tattered need. Now I ain’t no fool—well happen I am—but I honestly felt I could help him get over Annie. Of course, I knew he came to the Silk Ship every night to see if Jennings was there with his women and when the captain did put in a torturous appearance Jim would pickle his anger in enough rum to render it impotent. But most evenings the ménage à trois found other amusements and then James would implode into the sorrowful creature I took to my bosom and bed. Now, after waiting almost a year, you’d think I’d be ecstatic to finally hold my beloved close. But my booty turned out to be an empty chest some outlaw had already looted, for whenever he lay staring in darkness I knew it was Annie’s face he was seeking. Looking back, I can see there wasn’t really no heart left, just a terrible urge to quench his despair and make someone else feel the cost. But we went through the motions time and again and tried to pretend we were lovers.

  Ships came into harbor with old crews and new tales throughout the following weeks as the island’s tropical heat exploded into summer, and with them arrived word that Ben Hornigold might be amassing a pirate navy in the waters around Jamaica. Apparently Edward Teach was now his partner (with a six-gun sloop and seventy hands) and his men were calling their new commander—Blackbeard. From snippets of gossip here and there I learned more of this fearsome duo. Hornigold hailed from Norfolk and spoke with the native drawl, but he’d been raiding ships in the West Indies since 1713, graduating from canoes to his heavily armed sloop called the Ranger. His star pupil was Black-beard, who some say came from Bristol and had cut his teeth as a privateer during the Queen Anne’s War. In the past few months the two captains had seized several merchant prizes, including one stocked with flour heading for Havana, a sloop from Bermuda stuffed full of spirits, and a Portuguese vessel laden with sweet white wine. Such flagrant acts had quite incensed the local officials, who’d swiftly dispatched a Captain Mathew Munson to capture the scoundrel seamen. Unfortunately, though, Munson’s armed merchant vessel was pitifully outgunned and he barely escaped with his life after running aground on Cat Cay. The escaping members of the battered crew whispered that Hornigold’s fleet had seemingly increased to three hundred and fifty men in five terrifying vessels. Trouble was brewing out at sea and Captain Jennings was none too happy. So he spread promise of amnesty to each departing jack-tar and decreed there’d be a general Pirate Council—here—at the end of sweltering July.

  Now, before we’d even time to worry about conscientious bounty hunters, news came that Black Sam Bellamy had been lost to a storm off Cape Cod in his latest acquisition, a Guineaman called the Whydah. They say that as a young sailor Bellamy fell for a Massachusetts girl called Maria Hallett and wanted to prove worthy so he decided to join the sunken Spanish treasure salvage in Florida and was part of the gang who made off with some of Captain Jennings’s silver. This easy success convinced him to throw in his lot with the buccaneers, where he soon became another of Hornigold’s protégés, eventually deposing his mentor for command of the Mary Anne. He then progressed to the Sultana and Whydah, and was supposedly heading back to his lover when his flagship ran into the fateful storm.

  One of the nine survivors arrived on an incoming rumrunner to spread the tale of doom. Of course, you’ll already know how six of the partially drowned eventually danced at the end of the hangman’s rope—and that Cotton Mather managed to get the two who were pressed into service finally acquitted? Well, the ninth was a Miskito Indian called John
Julian who escaped the hunt and finally made it to Providence. And what a commotion he caused, let me tell you. First off, he’d managed to salvage most of a fifty-pound bag of plunder by packing the loot into wraps secured round his arms, legs and torso. It was top-notch booty that helped smooth his way to anonymity. And second, he was such a fine storyteller he kept us all entertained for weeks. John spoke a mix of English peppered with his own native words but his hands and face enacted the drama so every expression was vividly understood. He told us about being kidnapped by a rival tribe somewhere near his home on the Spanish Main, and being sold to the English and shipped to Jamaica. Two years later his owner took him to be overseer of another plantation in Antigua on board a merchantman called the Bonetta. Unfortunately this vessel was captured by Sam Bellamy, who took the captives to a deserted island and forced them to help careen the craft, scraping off parasites and caulking the hull to render it seaworthy.

  The captain supposedly took a liking to John and urged him join the Brethren of the Coast, which finally assured his freedom. Then Bellamy—that infamous Prince of Pirates—let the other prisoners leave on his old sloop while the swashbucklers sailed off on the bigger prize. Within a few weeks they’d taken the British Sultana as it left the Spanish Main with a cargo of logwood. Their captain offered no resistance because he was recovering from a previous wound, so the outlaws, boasting they were Robin Hood’s Men, spared their pleading lives. The buccaneers then took the new vessel to a remote inlet and over the Christmas period converted her into a fighter, soon acquiring even more manpower from the scattered remnants of Captain Martel’s crew (who’d been hiding on one of the islands after being attacked by the Royal Navy’s Scarborough). And by the close of February they’d captured one of the most advanced ships ever built—the Whydah. John happened to be on board their new galley the night that she made her fatal run up the Atlantic into a violent storm off the coast of Cape Cod.

  The survivor told of the sinking with such flair that I probably ain’t going to do it no justice, but here’s what I can remember. On that horrendous night John was on deck lashing equipment against the violent nor’easter that had risen up out of nowhere. The ship was driven onto a shoal in sixteen feet of water some hour round midnight. Violent winds pummeled the boat aground making it impossible to do anything but bind to the ropes for safety. Huge incoming waves swept the decks, washing away whatever was not strapped firm, and John clung on with his arms gripped tight round the main mast, hoping his body was wedged close enough in to avoid the hurtling cannons ripping through everything in their paths. Another great surge snapped the top of the mast, which miraculously fell the other side of John, but which drew the ship off the bar and into deeper water, capsizing her and forcing the craft below the freezing surf. John couldn’t swim but he held on grimly to the length of shattered wood in his grasp and allowed the tide to sweep him inland. He looked back once to see if anyone else had been thrown to safety but all he saw was the sinking stern—and even the terrified screams were drowned by the screeching gale. The ship had perished in sight of land, so the strong Indian willed his legs forward until he washed up amid a pile of debris on the sand. Each pulse of the sea spewed another batch of dead bodies until the whole beach seemed coated in bloated corpses. John lay semiconscious while the breath returned to his lungs, and then he made himself stand up before those notorious wreckers—the Moon Cussers—arrived to plunder among the salvage. One of the chests swept from the hold had breeched against the rocks spilling its treasure to the angry winds. So John rummaged through the heavy bags of gold dust, tore the shirt off a body that wouldn’t be needing it any, and set off inland before the first of the scavengers could arrive. He learned later that only nine souls had survived the disaster, and that the other unfortunates captured for trial in all likelihood would be executed. As John’s tale passed from tongue to tongue word came from Jennings that this newcomer was to be shown every civility because he brought with him the best of all possible news—that the deceitful Black Sam Bellamy would cheat no one ever again.

  Sometime around the middle of June things came to a head with Annie and Jim. I’d just been trying out some new dances to a whiny set of bagpipes when the captain appeared with his women on either arm. The sailors who were sat center table instantly melted to the edges of the room to make way for the entourage, and their king took up the slack. Anne looked ravishing in a gold outfit that flaunted Pierre’s finest cross-stitches while Meg made an equally beautiful companion in a red satin dress that flowed to the floor like wine. The captain ordered a flagon of sherry and invited some of the onlookers to join their party.

  Now Jim was sat with a young man called Albert Sparks, one of Violet’s regular punters pining to become something more. Albert was about the same age as my mate but his years on the water had cured his face to leather. His thinning hair was the color of gingerroot but his eyes were vivid and kind and he made Violet laugh out loud like no one I’d ever known. Well, as Albert was telling some tall story, Jim looked across at the captain publicly fondling his wife and something snapped in his self-control. Next thing I knew he’d blundered up to Annie’s table and had grasped her roughly by the arm. Then he roared, “Hey up, hussy! You’re coming home with me.”

  Anne tried to wriggle free of the pasty knuckles as she shouted back, “Get away, Jim, if you know what’s good for you. . . .” But the fingers tightened and lifted the woman onto her feet. She shot a glance at the captain to gauge his reaction. Jennings continued to sip solemnly on the sherry with a half-amused smirk twisting the corners of his mouth. “Harry!” she called to her lover. “Make him let go.”

  With slow deliberation, Jennings pushed back his chair—then quicker than a rattlesnake his dagger was suddenly pricking the back of Jim’s angry neck. “Release the lady,” he whispered.

  “She’s my wife!” James protested. “ I . . . I have a right. . . .” Annie wrestled her elbow free and glared in her husband’s face. “I’m with the captain now. And he’s twice the man of you!” Jim raised his arm as if to strike her when Jennings caught hold of his flying wrist with his free hand, all the while pushing the dagger farther into his neck with his other. Red beads appeared where the blade snagged and Jim’s hands flew to the weapon to halt its progress, wiggling and squirming until the tip slipped round under his chin allowing Jennings to press him into Annie’s vacated chair. The rejected husband sat in embarrassment, holding the end of his shirt against the dripping wound. Anne stared pitifully, her mouth grim with loathing. Meg remained seated, and poured the captain another drink from the flask on the table as he took up his former place.

  Jennings savored the liquid fire, running his tongue round the inside of his mouth before he decided, “You can take her.”

  “What?” Anne exclaimed in furious disbelief. “What are you saying, Harry?”

  The captain replied, “I’m saying, you should go home, Mrs. Bonny.”

  “You’re done with me?” she demanded to know. “Just like that?”

  Henry Jennings nodded his head and cast a knowing glance in Meg’s direction. The other woman had never spoken a word—but the delight on her face showed most evidently that she didn’t much like sharing her man, even though she shrugged a conspiratorial look of compassion in Annie’s direction. For once in her life Anne was at a loss for words. She hauled herself to her proudest height, pushed a stray lock of hair behind her right ear, kicked the miserable man in the chair to his feet, then marched briskly out of the bar ahead of James. The eerie silence hanging over the smoke lay suspended in awe for just another few seconds until the captain roared, “Play us a lively jig!” And the bagpipes groaned into action.

  That was a sobering encounter for me as well. I realized that it didn’t matter none how much I gave to Jim, or how hard I tried to insert myself into his void; he was a one-woman scoundrel who foolishly believed he’d just won back his prize. And I was once again the dross left rudderless and abandoned. At that time I didn’t know
what had just taken place, but within the week it became evident that something big had occurred. First off, after striking no luck for months Jim was magically given a berth on the first cruise out of port—a vessel bound for Madagascar, which meant he’d be away from his newly won wife for months. Apparently Jennings had decided that if he was no longer bedding Anne, then her husband wouldn’t be either. And second, Pierre warned Annie she needed to find another benefactor quickly since she’d now got no money, no protection, and had effectively been thrown to the sharks.

  Yet although me and Anne usually avoided each other, I ached to know if Jim had left me a message before his hurried departure. So a couple of days later, when Violet suggested we pay a visit to Pierre’s dress shop, I readily agreed to trudge alongside. I’d expected to find the rejected woman pale and shunned and lowly—but imagine my surprise when I discovered her radiant and gleaming, already at work on her next roguish plan. Pierre joked indiscreetly that Annie had now set her sights on the wealthiest man in the entire Carribees—the powerful Chidley Bayard.