'They outgun us,' I said. 'We could have all been killed!'
'For me, it is better to die than to be captured,' Minerva stared at the wall. 'Perhaps it will be different for you.'
I knew what she was thinking. As a slave, she might not receive the same treatment accorded to us. At least hanging was quick. Death more or less instant.
'You do not know – ' I began to say, but was silenced.
'Shut it!' a marine roared close to my ear. 'Or I'll shut it for you!' He caught me a blow across the side of the face with the butt of his musket to show just how he would do it.
We were herded together, shuffling in our chains between flanking lines of marines, loaded into long boats and rowed out to the waiting warship. The Swift Return was no longer at her moorings. Sam, the pot boy, had managed to warn them. She was already slipping away to lie in the darkness outside the harbour. There was no point in the ship being taken as well as half the crew. She might even be able to come to our rescue.
Any spark of hope was soon extinguished by the size of the warship looming above us. The Eagle was a naval third rater with seventy guns on two gun decks. The schooner would be no match for that.
27
We were assembled on deck. The captain emerged from his cabin and inspected us in flaring lanthorn light, his face twisted into disgusted disdain, as if the rats on his ship had been rounded up for inspection.
'Lock 'em up!'
He turned back to his cabin and we were hurried down the companionway and through the decks until we reached the hold. It was well below the water line, dark and cold. Here we were chained to benches, the hatch slammed down upon us, and left in blackness, listening to the water suck and slap against the hull.
We thought that we would rest in the harbour until morning, but from above came the dull thump of a drumbeat and singing, full-throated and disciplined, many men in chorus together. A groaning sound accompanied, slowly building to a rhythmic grinding creak.
'It's the capstan!' Halston, the gunner, shouted out. 'Well, I'll be damned! They're hauling anchor! Hark at that!'
Everyone listened to the winding capstan, the drag of hemp on wood as the huge anchor cable passed through the hawser holes. There was a splash as the flukes left the water.
'They must have seen the Swift! They must be going after her! It's not just us. They want the ship, an' all!'
The man of war began to move, slowly at first as the boat's oarsmen manoeuvred her through the harbour, then more quickly as the wind filled her sails, taking her into the open sea.
They could not leave us down here for ever. Sooner or later someone would come to check upon us. As soon as the hatch was thrown back, I knew what I would do.
A lanthorn swung, throwing light into the blackness.
'Hey, you there!' I shouted up to the sailor above me. 'I want to see the captain!'
'Oh, aye?' he sneered. He was young by his voice and what I could see of his pimpled cheek. 'What business does the likes of you have with him? What if he don't want to see you?' he snickered, seeming to find that amusing.
'I think he might.' I moved so that the light shafting down through the hatch fell full upon me.
'And how do you reckon that then?' He snickered some more.
'Because I am a woman!'
I held my two hands together and pulled my jacket open, rending the shirt beneath so that he could see my breasts. The effect was dramatic. His eyes grew wide and his face paled. The light wavered, swinging wildly around, the lanthorn shaking so much in his hand that I feared that it might fall down upon me. I pulled my coat across my chest to cover myself.
'So go and tell someone.'
He'd already gone, screaming for the lieutenant and running pell-mell as if pursued by the ghosts of every pirate who'd perished at the hands of His Majesty's Navy.
'Which one?'
The sailor pointed.
William squatted in the hatchway, frowning down on me. I'd asked to see the captain, but had got the lieutenant, as I hoped I might.
'Get her up. You two go down with him. Keep an eye on the rest of them.'
The two guards stared at me with interest, while their mate approached me warily, as if I were some dangerous animal. He undid the manacles, releasing me from the running chain that linked us all together. The men stepped back, so I could ascend the ladder first.
'What is all this?'
I held my coat tight around me. 'I'm a woman.'
'Gi's a look then!' one of the marines leered, trying to part my lapels.
I looked to William, appealing to him. 'Please, sir! I must speak with you privately.'
'That's enough of that!' William glowered at the marine. 'Come ... er ... Madam. You had better follow me.'
He sent the others away and took me to an empty storeroom, closing the door behind us. Before, I had just been one of a hoard of pirates. Now, he held up his lanthorn, studying me more carefully, searching for what had been missed before. I could not bear his casual curiosity; this stranger's scrutiny.
'Do you not know me, William?'
'Nancy?' He turned as white as the young sailor. 'Is it you?'
I took out the ring I wore around my neck as proof and token of my identity.
'Do you still wear yours, I wonder?'
His hand strayed to his neck, showing that he did.
'Oh, Nancy!'
His reaction astounded me. I'd expected shock, surprise, even disapproval, but instead he hung up his lanthorn and came to me, his dark eyes moist with tears, and put his arms around me, hugging me to him.
'You're found! Thank God for it!' He cupped my face with his hands and gazed down at me, as if at some precious possession lost and found again. 'When it was given out at Port Royal that you were kidnapped and taken by pirates, I thought that I would never see you again.' His face showed the shock he'd felt at the news, his fear for me. 'We've been out on patrol, searching for the desperate crew who would do such a thing. And by God, we found them!' His eyes narrowed. 'Hanging's too good for what they've done! Making you dress in men's clothes! Perfidious rogues! But you're safe now.' He held me to him and kissed me with all the passion he'd shown at our last meeting. Then he let me go. 'I must tell the captain, straightway, and then we must see if there are any women's clothes to be found.' He surveyed my garb. 'You should not have to endure such humiliation and such discomfort for a minute more.'
He turned towards the door, but I caught his arm.
'Hold up,' I said. 'Hold up. Just a minute.'
'What is it?'
'Before you take me to the captain, there is something you must know ... '
I told him everything. About my brother's duplicity. The marriage that had been arranged for me. About Duke, and Minerva, the maroons, and Broom. How I'd begged to be taken by the pirates. While I spoke, he paced about. Then he came back to me, shaking his head.
'I cannot understand. How could you allow yourself to fall into a way of life that goes so utterly against nature? Against all the feelings and instincts of your sex!' He spoke rapid and low, his face flushed, his voice hushed as if it shamed him to speak such shocking things out loud. 'Dressed – like this. Living with these men, going with them freely, staying with them under no duress. They are pirates! The scum of the sea.'
'I had no choice! Pirates they may be. But none have offered me any disrespect. Dressing as a man is not some whim. It is sensible and practical. It keeps me safe.'
'Even so ... ' He struggled with what I had told him. 'When we found you, you were consorting with whores!'
'What about it? Have you never done it?'
'I am a man!'
'They are women. I was talking to them. It's not as if I am some country miss who does not know of their existence. I grew up in Bristol. Why can you not see! I'm still the same Nancy! I still have your ring. I wear it constantly. I've thought only of you through all that's happened to me.'
He studied me intensely, as if trying to see beyond my male disg
uise. Gradually, the horror and loathing faded from his eyes. He stepped towards me, searching my face, looking to find my old self there.
'Well,' he sighed, and gave the ghost of a smile. 'You always were different, Nancy. I'll grant that. And loyal, and honest, and true. Not just to me, but to others, too. To Robert and the urchins we played with about the port. That's what I have always loved about you. I still have your ring. And my feelings haven't changed for you, whatever rig you wear.' He smiled at me then, and I thought that I had won him, but then his face clouded. He began to frown and pace again. 'Even so, I'm astonished at what you have told me. Broom. And Graham, too.' He shook his head. 'I knew them as good men! I'm shocked that they have chosen to go on the account.'
'Perhaps you have not been listening,' I said. 'Or you don't understand.'
'I own I don't, Nancy.' He sighed again, more deeply. 'All I know is I am a naval officer, and you have all been arrested for piracy. I can only do my duty.'
Maybe I would have pleaded with him more, but we were interrupted by a furious banging at the door.
'Lieutenant! We found another one! She's been took to the cap'n.'
'Let me speak to him,' William said to me, as we went towards the door. 'Take your lead from me. It might go easier for you, and your female companion, if he does not know that you chose to join Broom's pirate crew.'
'Piratical women!' The captain stared at Minerva and me in disgust. 'God's teeth! As if we didn't have enough on our plates. What next? A captain in petticoats?' He steepled his fingers and regarded us with eyes as cold as a winter sea. 'Kidnapped, you say?' He turned to William. 'Forced to go with them? I've never heard the like.' He threw up his arms. 'Well, I've no time to get to the bottom of it now. I'll leave that for the judges in Port Royal. I've got a ship to command and the rest of the rogues to round up. Take 'em below and lock 'em up. But keep 'em separate from t'other rabble.'
With that, we were dismissed. The captain's brow creased and he went back to poring over his charts without giving us another glance.
'I don't know who he wants least on his ship,' Minerva whispered as we were taken away. 'Women, or pirates.'
We were delivered to the orlop deck, a level above the hold where our shipmates were chained.
'What do you think will happen?' Minerva asked. 'To us? To the rest of them?'
I sat on a barrel with my head in my hands. 'I have no idea.'
Suddenly, the whole ship juddered and took on a sideways shift, throwing us against each other and causing the lanthorn we'd been left to swing wildly. Minerva and I clutched on to each other as the erratic motion worsened. The ship was out of the captain's control. She was being driven by wind and tide on to rocks, or a reef. From above, came the sound of the fast running of cable and the rapid rattle of the descending anchor. On a ship this size, the anchor was twice as tall as a man. We waited to hear the great splash as its weight hit the water, holding our breath, as anxious as any above decks for the anchor to slow the ship in its sideways drift.
From below us came a muffled thumping.
'The anchor's dragging!' Minerva's eyes were wide with fear. She meant that it could get no purchase. It had landed on smooth sand, or flat rock or coral. From above us came faint cries and shouting and the sound of feet running. There was the sound of another, lighter, chain running and another splash.
'They've thrown down the sheet!'
We listened.
'That's not taking either!'
There was the same bump, bumping as the sheet anchor dragged over the sea bottom. If neither took, the ship was done for.
'We have to get out of here!' Minerva rolled over to the door, trying to take the canting angle of the deck into account. She meant to hammer, demand release, but she'd barely raised her fist, when the door opened and William was standing there.
'I've come to get you out of here. The ship is like to founder. Captain is so set on chasing the pirate that he's sailing into waters too shallow for his ship's draft!'
We were sailing south, following Exuma Sound, threading through an archipelago of islands and cays, some no more than lumps of coral rock surrounded by reefs. Vincent had set a trap and the captain had fallen right into it. He was leading the Navy ship into dangerous waters, the schooner skipping in front like a dipping gull.
'Come with me and I can save you. Your ... er – ' William looked at Minerva, unsure of her status, or how to address her, ' – companion, too. But you must come with me now.'
'What about the others?' Minerva spoke up. 'Broom and his men, down in the hold?'
'There is no time. We are being driven towards an island. The ship could hit at any second. They have let go the anchor, and the sheet; both are dragging. Each surge of the surf takes us closer to the reef.'
'I won't go without them.' Minerva folded her arms, her face set and determined. 'I will not save myself and leave them all to drown!'
'Please, Madam!' He turned to me. 'Nancy! Tell her. There is no time to lose!'
I knew it was no good pleading. Nothing would shake Minerva from her resolution, and I would not go without her. He looked from me to her, and back again, and seemed to despair, recognising that we were two of a pair for stubbornness.
'Give us the key to their chains.' I held my hand out to him. 'We will go and free them.'
'I cannot wait, Nancy!' William's face creased in anguish. 'I have my duties. My own men need me!'
'Then you must do your duty. Do not wait for me. I would not expect it of you.'
'If we are separated this day,' he said, 'and if we survive it, don't doubt that I will find you. I will search the world over, I promise, but now I must go.'
Muffled by the hull, a dull roar sounded and then a lull, then the dull roar again. The noise of surf breaking. We were on a shore. Or a reef. From the deck came the screaming screech of winding gear.
'The davits are out,' William looked in the direction of the sound of the boats lowering. 'I must supervise the loading of my men ... '
'Go, then!'
He led us to the companionway and, with a swift kiss, he left me. As he went up to the deck, we went down towards the hold.
'What's that?' Minerva held my arm. A squeaking came from all around. Tiny red sparks showed part of the darkness to be moving. A shadowy carpet undulated about us, pouring over our feet with a tiny skittering scrape of claws and a sudden brush of fur.
'It's the rats. They always know.'
The rats were gone as swiftly as they had come. There was a sudden silence, eerie and odd in a world where noise is constant.
'D'you hear it?' Minerva whispered.
A scraping, as if the ship had grazed something, merely glancing off it in a way that was of no consequence. But there are no innocent encounters between a solid surface and a ship at sea. We knew that.
'We must hurry!' We stumbled on towards the distant cries of desperate men left and doomed to die.
'There she goes!' One voice carried above the others, and the next surge brought a rending and tearing, a creaking groan followed by a series of sharp cracks. Wooden boards being torn from each other.
'She's stove!'
There came a sudden rushing surge, a sudden coldness and the smell of salt in the fetid bilge-water stench of the ship's depths.
The single voice became the shouts of many men as every surge brought more breaking. Our feet slid from under us. The ship was heeling over; settling on to a resting place that was likely to be final. The water was pouring in now. From above came the cry of: 'Every man!' The ship was being abandoned.
The movement of the ship had sent us sprawling, but we were near to the trapdoor now. We went on, crawling on hands and knees, feeling for the bolt hole.
'Here it is!' Minerva hauled up the trap. 'We're here!' she shouted below. 'Hold on lads!'
We dropped down among them. The water was above our knees and rising. Men were on their feet, sliding into the water, dragging at the chains, wrenching until their wrists were bloo
dy, shouting for help, some pleading for mercy from man and God, others cursing, thinking that they had been abandoned by both.
28
It was a frantic race against the rising of the water to free the men from their chains and some still wore their manacles as we struggled through the overturned world of the listing ship. It was dark below decks, and what had been wall was now floor. The sea poured down the companionway in such a gushing roar that we could not climb against it, so we had to find another way up.
'This ship might well prove our coffin yet,' Broom said as water poured over him. 'Come on, lads! This way! Follow me, boys!' he shouted as he found a different way to the deck. 'The Navy rats have run, let's follow 'em down!'
The deck dropped away almost sheer beneath us. Phillips, the gunner, found an axe to strike off the last of the manacles, and Broom and Halston used all their cunning and knowledge to get us off the stricken ship. We climbed and cut our way through the tangled mess of ropes, shrouds and sails, and used the main mast as a bridge to take us away from the buffeting surf and over the lines of sharp coral into the lagoon on the other side of the reef. Once we had gained calmer water, we swum and floated, clinging to jetsam, helping each other, until we reached the shore.
Not all had survived the desperate flight from the wrecked ship and, if there were no food or fresh water to be found, we would be counting those who had already perished lucky beyond measure. We were on a rocky island, a comma of coral on the blank blue ocean. Broom sent out searching parties, while the rest of us wandered the foreshore, driving the scuttling crabs from the corpses that littered the white sands.
I, for my part, could take no pleasure in my own survival. I did not know what had happened to William. Had he got away in one of the boats when the ship was abandoned, or was he lying dead on the shore? I steeled myself to look at each body. I did not find him among them. But how could I be sure? Pirate or sailor, there was no telling between them. Most were unrecognisable even as men: their clothes torn to ribbons as if slashed away by razors; their flesh shredded by the vicious coral. Many had not made it to the shore at all. Sharks threshed in the waters of the reef, driven to frenzy by the blood in the sea.